The Zeta Project Season 3 Episode 7
by clutzattack
Summary: Episode 7
1. Chapter 1

THE ZETA PROJECT

SEASON THREE

Disclosure: I don't own The Zeta Project or its characters. (Or unfortunately any cool merchandise featuring such characters.)

This is my seventh episode so I'm over halfway done with season 3.Thank you to all of you who leave me reviews it's how I know that people are reading this, and it's what motivates me to keep writing. And sorry that it takes me so long to update. Homework is taking up ALL of my free time. Usually I'd start cutting into my sleep time, but my school work is already doing that. So I'm probably just going to try writing short chapters so when I do find some time to write I'll be able to post it more frequently.

"High Stakes" Ep. 7 Season 3

It'd been less than a week since they'd last been in southern California. They were alone on the interstate magway to southern Nevada, surrounded by a complete circular vision of barren dessert climate. This particular part of the desert was a graveyard of eerie skeletal silhouettes of antique billboards and old retired truck trailers—all completely stripped of any salvageable metal sheeting. What wasn't recyclable had been left there to rust and rot.

At first Ro had wondered why no one had bothered to maintain them to have prevented them from becoming scrap material, but as there was nothing around for miles, who would want to come all the way out here to do such maintenance work? Then again, the better question would be who had put them out here to begin with? No one drove into Las Vegas anymore with air transportation so readily available. The only reason they were driving in was because they still had their car and hadn't needed to abandon it somewhere yet. It just didn't make sense to her why someone would mix advertising images with scrap 20th century petroleum-powered truck cargo hulls. She could see having one or the other out here, but not both. Either they should just have the hotel promotional images, or they should completely turn the place into a landfill or storage area for old truck parts, but they certainly should never have mixed the two.

Completely reclined in the passenger seat of their car with no buildings, mountains, or trees to block her view, Ro stared up into the clear night sky. It felt like she was in the world's largest planetarium. She lifted her hand in the air and mindlessly began to trace the cloudy streak of the milky way with her finger. After tracing the handle, her hand veered off of the parabolic path, then came to a rest on the control panel of her right arm rest.

Zee smiled, laughing to himself as Ro fumbled to return her seat upright. First her window lowered a couple of inches, then closed itself again. Following that he heard the beep sound from her door being locked then finally he heard the sound of the electrical and mechanical parts working to slowly raise Ro's seat back to the upright position. "How much further?" she asked, rubbing her eyes to awaken herself more.

"Another hour or two," he replied, practicing his well-learned skill of casually replying rather than quoting the exact time. "You might still be able to fall back asleep," he suggested, knowing that sleeping would make the time go by faster for Ro. Also, they'd been up really early this morning, so he knew she was tired and needed the extra sleep. But then again, it wasn't always possible to sleep the entire way through a long car ride, and they'd been on the road for several hours already.

"Nah, I want to be awake when we drive in. And besides, I'm actually not finding the passenger seat of this model of car that comfortable." This was just greatthey'd been running so long she was now a connoisseur of sport car's seats, and which ones were the best designed for sleeping in…

Illuminated by the headlights of their car, it appeared that they were approaching another hotel advertisement. Ro had a brief imaginative vision of an army of feds jumping out from behind it… She blinked and they quickly passed the sign. She turned around to look at it behind them, but there was nothing behind it. She was paranoid, and she knew it. The whole concept of going to Las Vegas made her nervous, and driving in only increased her anxiety.

They were out in the middle of nowhere, cut off from civilization or any escape routes. What if the feds found them out here alone? What if they had a blockade set up for them just a few miles ahead? Or what if they were conveniently hiding behind one of the signs or behind one of the trailers? Stuck in the middle of this wasteland, they would have no where to run—actually, she would have no where to run. Zee would be able to stand going for days without water, wandering around in the desert or walking miles and miles back along the road or to the next town, but she'd not be able to withstand the heat for more than a few hours before she'd become dehydrated then have a heat stroke.

However, driving in had seemed like the only way to get around the problem of being identified by airport security officials. If they'd flown in, then they surely would have been found by the NSA and their plan would be ruined. But, on the other hand, their lone pair of headlights on this deserted road made them more suspicious to an overhead scout plane. Hopefully, though, Bennet didn't know they were going to be here so he wouldn't be using air support to look for them.

Her thoughts led her to ask, "Why do you think anyone would decide to start a city all the way out here?"

"Originally Las Vegas was a fort founded by a religious group that was traveling west through the area after suffering from persecution in the east. I'm sure the remote location was appealing to them."

"A religious group you say? Taking into account that Las Vegas can be considered the sin capital of the country they must be disappointed with the fruit of their labors, or they must have be the most liberal religious denomination ever."

She'd posed a question that extended beyond the small factual knowledge in his database so he said nothing in reply but tried to think of the solution for himself. "I think they all moved to Utah," he finally concluded.

"That's nice," Ro yawned, not really interested anymore in the topic. She was more interested in indulging in her newly self-aroused worries and anxieties than hearing more random trivia from Zee.

"You think he's going to be there?" she asked after a couple of seconds of silence had passed between them. For what she'd thought was a simple question, Zee seemed rather perplexed by it.

After thinking about the question for a moment, or delaying his response to make it seem like he had to think about it for a while, he answered, "It would seem pointless to be coming out all this way if he wasn't going to be."

His response didn't necessarily answer whether he personally thought he would be or not, which is what she'd hoped he'd admit, but his answer was still valid to her question.

"Do you think he'll be there?" he asked her.

Now it was time for her to confess or lie about her own doubts, "I should hope he'd be, because if he's not, or if we're discovered, there's not any easy way get out of this state. There's just miles and miles of, well, nothing."

While there really wasn't just nothing, she knew that there had to be something more than neon lights, all-you-can-eat buffets, and drive thru chapels that made Las Vegas so populated. Strip bars and prostitution were common things that could be found anywhere elseif someone purposely went looking for them. However, Nevada was the only state left where gambling was still legal.

Gambling was the only thing that could support an economy of this size, and it was the only reason that people came here. Personally, Ro didn't see much of a thrill in pulling down an arm lever then watching a machine eat your creds away with the odds set against getting a return. Was there even a law that said that the casinos had to give back any of the money?aside from the fact that people would stop spending their money there if it seemed like they never won anything… To Ro, gambling was a dangerous thing as chances of winning always slim, but apparently to those addicted to it, the possibility that luck could intervene and fate might chance its course, made it worth the risk of losing. In conclusion, she could then say that they were just heading into a city full of risk takers, and frivolous spenders. But then again, who was she to complain? They were just as guilty.

Most of the people who would be gambling would just be throwing away money that they'd saved and had already budgeted to not count on receiving any return . In their case, they were always making bets with something a lot more valuable—their lives. Even more risky than losing a couple of creds on the card tables or to the slots, they were taking a large gamble in coming here. It seemed that every time they appeared anywhere in public that they were putting their lives in jeopardy. Their addiction wasn't to the chance of winning, but the chance of living.

Ordinarily, just traveling through any town didn't pose much of a threat to being discovered. It was just in this case with these select circumstances that made the odds so highly staked…

"You suspect it's another set up…" Zee called her on her uncertainty. If she hadn't been thinking about it then she would have been confused from him stating something that so out of context from what they'd last spoken about.

"I'll admit that it does seem suspicious that we found this guy so easily," she readily replied. She didn't feel that it would be wise in this case to hide her anxieties from Zee.

"Locating Dr. Anderson's conference itinerary on the net wasn't exactly what I'd call an easy find." They'd spent hours and hours looking online before Zee had finally got a hit with this medical school convention. And with the speed that he processed information, that was certainly saying something about the scarcity of the information.

"Yeah, and I hate to bring up the fact, but Dr. Boyle did purposely put his travel plans on the net so we'd find them… "

"But this isn't something as frivolous as travel plans. This convention series isn't just something that you make up just to use as…" his processors had come up with the word almost instantaneously, but he paused to draw a little more attention to his carefully selected word, "bait."

"Also," he added, "the Association of American Medical Colleges is widely known… I don't think that this is going to be some hoax."

Ro sighed deeply. At some times like this one, she wondered if his processor was made from old recalled blender parts, as he always seemed to confuse and mix up what she was trying to tell him. "I'm not saying that the convention itself is a set up. It's just that to me, it seems a little too easy for someone like Bennet to simply add a name on the list of guest speakers."

"But the topic of his discussion is on the findings from electromagnetic scans of sheep hearts that show progression in the field of bioengineering… I don't know of many other people who would have that kind background in such a field for it to not be him…"

"You're not getting this are you? The lecture doesn't even have to exist at all! Bennet could just have put this guy's name on the list with a convincing discussion title so that we'd think he was going to be there. It could all be a lie!"

"Do you think we should turn back?" Zee asked. He was careful to hide the sound of disappointment in his voice as he knew that Ro's worries were very validated, and he wouldn't want her to feel guilty if she did decide that she didn't feel like going through with this.

"No, I just think we need to be at little more careful here."

"Ro, if at any point, you don't feel right, just let me know, and we'll cancel the whole thing."

She could tell that he was trying to make her feel good about her worries, but what she really needed was for him to help her to get rid of them rather than feeding them. "If we're coming out all this way then I think that we should go through with it…"

"Ro, no excuses. I want you to promise me that if you don't feel right about the situation and that you'll tell me so we can get out of it."

She smiled at him, "You're lucky you didn't make me promise that a couple years ago or we'd have never gotten this far. And it's for that reason that I can't promise you that now."

"Ro, I'm going to call it off now if you don't!" Zee insisted. Ro knew he was serious because the car began to slow down as he was breaking to pull over to the side of the road, or even pull a U-turn.

"No you're not, because you know that even if I did make you that promise I'd just break it anyway so it wouldn't do any good."

Zee sat resolutely back in his chair, but the car didn't speed up again. "You'll at least tell me when you don't feel something is right then?" he asked.

"I promise you that, but there'll be no more of this talk of turning back."

"It's a deal then," he said, extending his hand to Ro. She clasped it and lightly shook it up and down. The car then began to quickly speed up again.

He hated to admit it, but part of the reason that he'd wanted her to promise him that she'd let him know when something didn't feel right, was because he lacked the sense to be able to discern such a thing for himself. While he had a more refined skill of intuitiveness, the "gut" feeling of knowing when they were walking into a bad situation or at trap was something that eluded him because of his naïve, honest and naturally trusting nature. He didn't expect people to lie to him, so it often left him subject to being taken advantage of. Thankfully, for these past two years, Ro had been with him to fend him off from such people or circumstances.

After releasing his hand Ro readjusted her seat one more time, getting comfortable for the remaining drive in. However, even though her intention had been to stay awake until they made it in, she found herself growing tired again from lack of a conversation and nothing around her to look at to keep her interested and awake.

She felt a slight surprise and alarm as she unexpectedly felt herself being awakened as she hadn't yet realized that she'd fallen asleep again. As her senses slowly revived she became awake that her neck was sore from how she'd been uncomfortably sleeping against the window, and also, of the threatening feeling of a cold, black metal claw grabbing her hand. Her thoughts were muddled and confused as her mind remained temporarily trapped between being awake and asleep. She was willing herself to wake up, but she didn't seem to have any control over her body as she couldn't will her eyes to open. The feeling of defenselessness scared her to the point that she wanted to call out for help, but she was unable to speak or even move! In her mind she was screaming for Zee to come save her, but she was paralyzed!

Then, suddenly, she awoke with a sharp inhale of breathimmediately feeling absolutely sick with guilt. It was when she'd thought to call to Zee for help that she was able to make the distinction between her imaginative vision and reality, which had then enabled her to awaken. Upon thinking of Zee, she'd realized that it was not some malicious mechanical hand holding her, but Zee's hand, holding hers. She felt disgusted with herself for what her first initial impression of what his kind gesture had been.

He quickly released her hand, almost as if he had just touched something hot or sharp. Her lower lip was turned under, almost as if she were biting her tongue to prevent herself from yelling at him for having woken her up. Or maybe she was pouting because he'd released her hand?—No, she wouldn't do that, and how absurd his processor was to have proceed in such a direction of thought.

She began to chew on her lower lip, using the dull pain as a way to ensure that she really was fully awake. "Something wrong?" Zee asked anxiously silently cursing himself for having startled her awake when he'd just meant to slowly wake her by gently squeezing her hand. But by her sharp breath when she suddenly woke up, he knew he'd failed.

"Yeah, you were holding my hand and I woke up before I realized this so I couldn't savor the moment," her inner most thoughts whispered for her to say.

"Nope, nothing." She recited instead. Was she crazy? What was this nonsense she was thinking? "Something up?" she introduced a topic quickly.

"We're here," Zee said timidly, still feeling embarrassed with himself. How could he be so clumsy? It was easy—he had little sense of touch so he'd frightened Ro awake with his cold metal hand rather than gently retrieving her from her sleep with a soft, warm touch. Next time he'd stick with just calling her name or shaking her shoulder. Their exit off of interstate route 15 was easily identifiable by the bright luminosity of all of the lights of the hotels all located on just the one boulevard.

At four a.m. there wasn't any night life to excite the streets, but the strip was still impressive with all of its neon affluence. Each casino was earnestly competing with all the other hotels around it to be the most enticing opportunity for someone to fall into the lies of the possibility to "get rich quick." Everything was designed with the intention to lure any passerby inside, where they could then spend their money on the whirling wheels of the slot machines, or on the green felted gaming tables, or on the entertainment shows that were readily available inside.

Everything was just so overwhelming with all of the displays of luxury and the glamorous appeal of pure escapist fun. The casinos with their elaborately decorated décor were probably the most impressive figures of architecture that Ro had seen on her travels. One of the first sites was another fairytale castle. This one had four large stone turrets with several red, blue and gold spires. She didn't have much time to count them all because then there was a ten story sphinx guarding the entrance to an ancient Egyptian pyramid! It was like the entire world was represented in these few square miles! There was a hotel for ancient Greece, Paris, Tuscany, Arabia, China, South America, the Mediterranean, New York… There was one with a pirate ship out in front, one advertising white sandy beaches and tropical paradise. It seemed like there was a hotel for everything. Heck, there was even a hotel for flamingos! She began to wonder whether people really did come here for the gambling of it they just came to stay in one of the rooms of these magnificent hotels.

"So which one will we be staying at?" Ro asked as they came upon a tent shaped hotel.

Zee looked over to her, but then quickly returned his eyes systematically to the road, "Pick one."

Ro gasped in surprise. While she'd been hopeful that he hadn't already made accommodations at one, she hadn't really expected her wish to come true. In a way she almost wished that he had though, because she didn't think that she could pick one out of the lot! There were just too many choices and they all looked so inviting.

"Wait," she stopped herself from becoming too excited with her choice. "Which one will Dr. Anderson be staying at?"

"I'm not sure," he replied. "His accommodations weren't on the site. He could be at anyone of these, or he could be flying in on the day of."

She couldn't help but guiltily smile with having no conscience restrictions on her choice, but still, she did feel some obligation to pick the hotel that it seemed most likely he'd be at. She doubted he would be at one of the family oriented casinos such as the circus or castle one. There were several up class hotels, such as the one themed with fine art or the one that just looked sophisticated and nothing more… It seemed more plausible that he'd go to one of those, or because he might be attending this conference on the government's dime, maybe they should go and find the cheapest discounted hotel? She doubted that they'd bother to put him up anywhere too expensive, and she'd give them some credit in assuming that he wouldn't be at one of the downtown grubby, old strip, casinos that were ignored because they were so outclassed by the uptown ones.

From the look of careful consideration on her face as she gazed at the lat of the hotels on the strip, he could tell what she was thinking. "You know, it might be better if we don't try to stay at the same hotel as him, for safety reasons," he suggested.

"Then how do you expect that we'll find him?"

He knew that he'd gone over this with her once before, but part of replicating human-like activity would be to not assure her that he had, but to repeat himself as if he was just telling her for the first time, as if she was asking, clearly she must have forgotten. "Hopefully tomorrow we'll have the chance of visiting each of the casinos to check their lobby computers for the list of registered guests. And if we don't find him that way we can always sneak into the lecture."

This was just too perfect. Even if they didn't get to stay in the other hotels they'd still get to visit them. She'd just have to make sure that she didn't get too caught up in the vacation aspect of it but that she remembered why they'd come here in the first place. "Well then in that case, I've always wanted to go to Paris," she smirked.


	2. Chapter 2

Zee pulled around the circular drive way of the Paris hotel which featured a two-thirds scale of the Arc de Triomphe. On their left there was a half scale replication of the Eiffel Tower, glamorously illuminated in the night sky. There was no extravagant red carpet treatment for real early morning arrivers such as themselves, but the service was decent enough. There was only one valet parking assistant still on duty at this time of night, which was only two less than the number that were stationed during the day. The small number of valets was a result of the small demand for valet parking as the only people who had cars in the area, tended to be locals, and they were wise enough to park their own car rather than having to tip a valet from having them do it for them. The only reason the valet was even there at all was because there was the possibility that if someone did need their car from the valet garage in the middle of the night, a valet would be needed to retrieve it.

The valet was bundled up inside of a small covered shack, mindlessly watching the flashing images from the TV. From the reflection on the glass walls of the shack, Ro could see that he was unfortunately stuck watching nothing but boring late night reruns. It was probably better than watching the "All Vegas" channel.

When the valet heard their car pull up to the curb he quickly composed himself from where he'd been resting his head against the wall, half asleep. He straightened his uniform then stepped out to greet them. Displaying his best manners he then hurried over to the passenger side of the car to open the door for Ro, "Bonjour, Madame, Monsieur," he said, nodding to Zee, " welcome to France."

Ro stepped out lightly onto the cobblestone walkway, taking his hand for stability. Slightly more than a dozen feet ahead, she could see a sign clearly posted, warning people that the cobble stones were made to represent the real streets in France, and they their uneven texture made it a risk for pedestrians to walk on.

"My goodness," she thought, "What kind if moron needs a sign to let them know what kind of ground they're walking on?" Wouldn't it be obvious when they saw the raised stones in the walkways that they would realize they weren't walking on smooth cement? When they go to the beach, do they need a sign that tells them they'll be walking on sand? Not to mention, there really wasn't much of a topographical difference in stone heights from what she could tell, or that would even be enough to trip someone. Most likely someone was just really clumsy and they fell flat on their face then decided to make a lawsuit out of it, hence the stupid signs.

Out of habit, Ro closed swung the car door shut rather than letting the valet gently close it for her. With the foresight that their valet would be parking their car, Zee left his door open for him. "Would you like help with your luggage?" the valet asked, heading toward the trunk of the car.

"That won't be necessary," Zee declined. Ro was the only one between the two of them that ever carried luggage around, in which case it was usually just her small backpack which he was sure she would prefer to keep close to her. The valet continued around the back of the car to the driver side door. "Check in is right through those doors on your right ," he spoke mainly to Zee, pointing in the direction of two large French doors. "Anything else I can assist you with?"

"No thank you," Zee said politely, pulling out his cred card to tip him.

"Not too much," Ro whispered in a low enough tone so that their valet wouldn't hear. While she didn't say it, Zee was sure he knew what Ro was thinking. She suspected that giving the employees any extra creds was only going to encourage them in their supposed gambling habits, or that it would increase the temptation for them to start. Still, he pitied this poor human who was stuck out here in the middle of the night.

Being built to imitate human mobility, he could easily get in and out of cars, but most other bots were not designed to do so. Even the bots that currently worked in the transportation agency remained at one station and didn't constantly change vehicles. Also operating a trolley on a set path was very easy compared to navigating through a tightly wound parking garage and having to park assorted vehicles. Not to mention, when dealing with people's personal possessions, there was a higher risk of liability if something did happen.

Zee tipped the man a little bit under the initial sum he'd had in mind, mainly because of Ro's wishes. Hopefully it was still enough to ensure that the valet wouldn't pack their car in. Still, he wondered if there would even be enough cars parked in the garage to merit the worry about getting packed in, or if there were even enough to fill up the first floor of the parking garage.

The valet handed Zee the claim ticket for their car, which Zee turned over to Ro. "Sometimes I wonder why they didn't build you with pockets," Ro teased Zee as she shoved the ticket in her back pocket then proceeded with Zee to the entrance. The valet got in the driver's seat of their car, then drove it into the garage. "I just didn't want to risk being seen putting it away," he explained and half apologized. Indeed, it would have been strange for him to magically shove it inside of his chest and have it disappear.

"No worries," she assured him.

Zee gently pushed open one of the front lobby doors, and held it open for Ro. It was common design practice to have front doors open inward as it seemed more welcoming than having to pull a door open to get in. There was no line for registration, but Zee suggested that Ro go ahead and take a seat while he got them a room.

While she'd already been sitting down the entire car ride over, she didn't feel like arguing with Zee in her defense of why standing didn't bother her. Instead she plopped down on the provided circular couch and admired the European decor. The room was painted in varying shades of off-white colors such as almond, beige, and eggshell. Almost everything in the room from the ornamental carpets to the light fixtures were accented with gold. And with the soft lighting from the several hanging crystal chandeliers, the room almost seemed to glow. Ro was just getting used to the comforting air of luxury around her when she noticed Zee turning away from the counter.

There seemed to be a small hint of concern on his face, but it wasn't like his usual, "I need a human translator," physiognomy. Especially since it was a bot at the concierge desk and not a human. Ro got up from the couch and went over to see what was the matter. "What's up?" she asked Zee, covering her mouth as felt herself yawning. Maybe she was more tired than she realized?

"They don't have any vacancies..."

"Maybe if we hurry he won't have turned off the engine yet," Ro said turning to leave to go find their valet.

However, Zee hadn't finished explaining the situation yet, "They don't have any vacancies where we'd have the same room for the whole week. We'd have to switch rooms, or find another hotel to stay at, unless someone cancels their reservations. "

"They don't have a suite or a luxury room open?" she asked. Usually the pricier rooms tended to be vacant when the economy ones were booked."

"I asked. The room in question is a suite. Apparently we've come at a busy time."

She didn't really care anymore. She just wanted to go to bed or lie down undisturbed for a couple of hours. "Sure, sounds fine. We'll have plenty of chances to check for open reservations tomorrow. "

"Should I make your reservations?" the bot's monotonous voice hummed.

"Yes, please," Zee said. After the bot went over the legal information such as deposits and check out time, Zee ran his cred card through to pay for the room. Even without the added fee for registering during non registration hours, this was probably the most expensive room he and Ro had stayed at to date.

After the transaction was approved Zee was presented with the card key to their room. He promptly handed it over to Ro. Suddenly the burden of being entrusted with small articles or documents seemed a little more appealing as she secretly liked the responsibility of being in charge of their rook key. They were given brief directions on how to get to the elevators that would take them to their room.

Zee and Ro made their way into the casino portion of the hotel. The interior layout was cleverly devised so that anyone who wanted to travel anywhere would have to pass by dozens of slot machines. The ceiling was cleverly painted to look like outside sky, however from what Ro could see, there were no windows anywhere inside of the casino that would hint of the true outside world. There were only a few die-hard gamblers still at the slots at this time of the morning. Most looked like they had no clue how late, or early, that it really was, and no wonder; there were no clocks anywhere and no windows for them to tell how long they'd been there.

The wandered past some quaint shops that were selling accessories, chocolates and pastries, and even a winery, all of which were closed until the morning. The elevators were just at the end of shops. They didn't have long to wait for the elevator since there were no other stops for it to make on the way down. The suites were all located at the very top of the hotel so they had a quick, but long elevator ride to the top.

Once they found their room, Ro hesitantly inserted the key card into the door. It seemed a little strange that just this one room would be available. But she didn't suspect that Bennet had had the hotel leave it open for them. There was no way he could have known that they'd be staying in this hotel yet. It was just luck, and nothing more.

As tired as she might have been feeling, there was too much to explore in their 1,000 square foot room to allow her to go to sleep. There was a separate dining and seating parlor, and even separate bathrooms! This was definitely the nicest hotel Zee had treated her to yet! It was too bad they'd have to check out of it by 3:00 the next day. Considering the fact that they'd be staying for less than 12 hours in this room, it would have been nice of the hotel to give them a discount rather than charging them extra. Oh well, it wasn't like money mattered to them anyway.

Ro threw herself down on the king-sized bed and was asleep almost instantaneously. As much as she sometimes tried to deny how tired she was Zee could usually tell when she was relying on adrenaline to keep her up and when she was sincere. Despite how it'd seemed like she was sleeping the whole way in the car, he knew that it'd been light sleeping rather than deep sleep.

It was nine in the morning when she woke up. Zee had folded the covers over her, though the air temperature was warm enough that she probably would have been fine without them. Zee was patiently seated in a chair, just waiting for her to wake up to go over their plans for the day. But before they made their lists of hotels to look for Dr. Anderson in, she opted for a shower first. All the dirt and grime that had built up n her skin almost made her feel guilty for having slept on the Egyptian cotton, 600 thread count bed spreadalmost, but not quite.

"I assume our first stop will be breakfast," Zee commented when Ro was finally dressed and out of the shower.

"You got that right." Traveling tended to make her really hungry, as Zee already knew by now.

Unfortunately the restaurant located on the 11th floor of the Eiffel Tower was only open for dinner, so they would have to come back if Ro wanted to eat there. Ro brushed this option off however when she realized that she really wasn't a fanatic for fine cuisine, and that the fact that she couldn't understand anything on the menu turned her off. Instead she suggested that they just start walking and if she saw anything that looked good they'd stop off.

They made it through the maze of slot machines all the way back to the front desk without anything in particular catching Ro's attention. It was back at the front of the casino that Ro decided that they'd take their chances with finding accommodations at another hotel for tonight, rather than waiting to hear if a room opened up. Zee got in the line with the other people who were checking out to return their key card. Ro took her seat back on the couch which was now occupied by three other tired guests. It was shocking to see just how many more people were up and about when compared with the solitude they'd seen last night. She began to feel out of place as she had one of the youngest faces around. Not many families seemed to have chosen this hotel to stay at, so most of the people around her were adults.

It was a relief when Zee had finished checking them out and had returned to her side. At least when he was with her, she looked like she could be a couple of years older. When they were together they might pass off as a young married couple while alone she was clearly just a teenager. The biggest give away was probably her clothes. She'd have to have Zee get her a new outfit while they were here, one that took away from her street credit and added to her homemaker account.

"We ready to go?"

"There's one last thing," he said, looking vigilantly around. There were cameras everywhere, but he'd have to make do, regardless.

"Oh right," she remembered. He wanted to hack into the hotel guest list and look for Dr. Anderson's name. "Well good luck to you, I'm going to be wandering around outside. Everyone keeps staring at me like I'm a shoplifter or something."

"It'll only be a few minutes," he assured her. "I'll come find you."

While Zee went looking around for a broom closet to "change" in, Ro exited from the casino. It was warm outside, and the humidity was higher than what she was used to, but the weather was pleasant. She started following the sidewalk around toward the main entrance. In the day time with everything lit up with natural lighting, the surrounding environment seemed to have tripled in size.

Deciding to keep close to the casino, she settled on just walking down to the end of the street block, then back. If Zee ran into trouble, she didn't want to be too far away. She hadn't gone very far when she came up to an interesting spectacle. It wasn't just the beauty of the fountain, which was titled, "Place de las Concorde," but what people were throwing into it that caught her attention. It looked like they were throwing really old cds into the water, but the popularity of the activity would suggest that the small round disks were not cds, but something with less value.

Ro peered over the edge of the fountain, and stared at the pile of discs that were scattered on the bottom. Despite her intuition not to, she reached into the water, and grabbed one of the discs. The disc had two strange pictures on it. One was of an eagle, while the other was someone's face. Ro fondled the disc, turning it over in her hand, weighing it, testing its durability before turning to the person next to her to finally ask just what these discs were.

Ro wished she'd just kept quite rather than admitting her ignorance after the man she'd turned to began to rudely laugh at her. Staring at her incredulously he replied, "It's a coin," then turned to continue laughing out of her presence.

Rather than throwing the coin back in, Ro held onto it. Zee would probably figure out what it was even if she just described it to him, but to be sure, she'd just show it to him. She wouldn't dare to ask anyone else what the coin was for, or where everyone was getting them.

Further down the street she was fortunate enough to find a sidewalk cafe, where the menu was in English, and the prices were affordable enough so that she could pay for it were her limited cred supply. She sat down to eat for a minute, then decided that she'd best start on her way back to the entrance. Zee would most likely have finished his task by now, or would be at the point where he needed rescuing.

He saw her on her way back, with a crepe shoved in her mouth. "Find anything?" she asked. It wasn't surprising to hear that he hadn't.

"Sorry it took me so long, I had to wait for a computer to open up."

"It's fine," she assured him. He always seemed to worry about the most trifle things.

"You have a good walk?" He asked. "I see you found something to eat."

"That's not all I found. What can you tell me about this?" Ro asked, handing him the coin. "Everyone was throwing them into the fountain over there," she pointed.

"It's a coin," he gave her a short explanation.

Oay, the one time when she actually wanted the lengthy definition, he decides he's going to reserve himself... "But what's it for, where's everyone getting them? Why are they just throwing them away?"

"It's currency, Ro. Several years ago, before the cred system went into affect, people used to carry these around, along with paper bills to use as money."

"How much is this worth then?"

"I don't think you can really spend it. It's just exclusive to this area now. It's the old-fashioned traditional item that people used to deposit into slot machines. They might still be gambling with them, which would be why everyone has them."

"But how much is it worth?"

"I'd imagine a quarter of a cred."

"So why are they just throwing them away?"

"I imagine it's a kind of offering which they hope will in turn grant them luck."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Ro commented, yet as they walked by the fountain, she found herself tossing the coin back in with a silent wish that they'd have luck in finding Dr. Anderson.

They hadn't gone very far when they came up to their next casino to check out. It was the sister casino of the Paris, Bally's. If they'd thought of it earlier they might have been able to walk through a connected bridge from the one casino into the other. There didn't seem to be any real theme to this casino, and the only attraction to beckon people inside was a hover path that ran through large spiraled rings of neon lights. At night, the lighting had seemed exciting, but during the day it didn't seem special enough for her to want to go in and explore, or for them to spend the night there.

Just like at the Paris, the lines at the registration counter were long from people checking out, and early arrivers, hoping to be able to check in early. "Anyway you want me to help out with this one?" she asked him once they were inside of the lobby.

"If you could time it right so that you were at the front of the line by the time I got to the registration computer, you'd save me the trouble of having to explain to people that my window was closed. But if not, I'll manage if you want to just wait in the lobby."

While waiting seemed more appealing as she was sure she'd draw more attention by pretending to check out a hotel room when she clearly looked underage, she didn't want this to be a trip where she just sat in the background all day long.

Zee disappeared to go and find some place to transform into a hotel concierge while Ro got in the back of the waiting line. As she'd suspected, the timing didn't really work out as by the time she got to the front of the line, there didn't look like there was an open computer for Zee and her to meet at. Either way, she made things work out well enough as she got the concierge to call the manager over from his computer to explain to her for the final time that they would not rent a room to her. The manager further added that if she didn't leave or if she made any more disturbance, they'd call security.

Not doubting that the might have already called security, Ro left in a hurry, smiling knowing that once the manager had left his computer, another employee had stepped up to it immediately. If not, then Zee would be on his own, like he'd been last time.

"He's not here," a familiar voice called to her, as she was wandering around one of the small gardens outside.

"Not surprising," she replied, turning around to face Zee. "But we've loads of other hotels to try, so don't worry."

Right across the street was the Bellagio, whose gardens and fountains had world known status. This was clearly the highest class hotel on the strip. "I'm not even going to bother with this one," Ro announced, "This has, 'no children' written all over it. And if you're going to sneak in unnoticed, you're even going to have to dress up a notch before you go in."

"That's fine. Where can I find you when I'm done?"

"There's a dancing fountain display every half hour, I'll be in the crowd when that starts. And if you're done really early, I'll be in the botanical gardens."

"Right, see you in a couple of minutes."

She disliked her reluctance to get involved, but she had to admit that this was turning out to be a really nice trip. The gardens were a kaleidoscope for her senses. Featuring a garden for each season, the colors were overwhelming there was just rows and rows of exotic plants with wonderful fragrances and color. If it wasn't for the fact that she'd told Zee she'd be watching the fountain show, she might have wandered through the gardens all day long. She never imagined herself as being much of a fan for botany, but she was very impressed and was actually interested to learn more about some of the plants she'd seen in there.

Zee entered the lobby. He was well dressed, but because he hadn't changed his facial appearance much it gave off the impression that he was just another yuppie who'd acquired his wealth from inheriting some million dollar company from a deceased relative. Still, he looked rich and well off, so no one gave him any second glances.

He thought it regretful that Ro had opted not to come because he was sure she would have found the 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers that hung from the ceiling, to be quite the spectacle. But, she was right, this wasn't the place for children, or teenagers. They were going to have to do something to make it easier for Ro to blend into the adult crowds here with either using the holographic bracelet to make a disguise, or by taking her shopping for clothing to make her look older. He was sure she'd prefer the second option over the first.

In a small observation, despite this casino's reputation as being the jewel of the city, he didn't feel that the Italian-town theme of the casino was taken indoors as well as to the extent that it was portrayed on the exterior. Still, the casino was very classy without being overly pretentious.

Keeping with its display of luxury, there were no lines of people waiting to check out or check in. Such lines of people would give the casino a cluttered or crowded look that would detract from its exclusivity and privacy. He had no problem finding an open computer and accessing its database.

Ro actually saw Zee approaching rather than having him find her. From his expression, she already knew that Dr. Anderson wasn't at this hotel either. At the rate they were going, they would probably be done with all of the hotels in one day! "No good?"

"He wasn't there."

"This is only our third casino..."

"But what if he's not at any of them?" He wasn't meaning to sound doubtful, but there was always the possibility that Dr. Anderson wouldn't be.

"Then we check the ones in the surrounding area, or just try to catch him at the convention. But I'm sure he'll be at one of these, so for the last time, don't worry! And besides, what if he hasn't checked in yet? We might have to do this all over tomorrow!"

He put on a smile for her, as he knew it would make her happy to see it, even though it might not reflect what emotion he wanted to be displaying. If there was one thing he was good at, it was putting on a guise of an emotion other than the one he was thinking about. "I've been checking the entire week's list, just to make sure. He's either made a reservation or he's going to be flying in just for the one day."

"You don't think he'd do a last minute check in like we did?"

"Most people who can schedule in advance, do."

"Oh... well then, just out of curiosity. When you were looking through the guest list did you happen to find out if..."

"No open reservations. Sorry Ro."

"That's okay," she sighed, "I don't think we'd have fit in anyway."

"We should keep heading down this way. I'm told the Greek hotel we passed last night, has a large shopping forum inside. I think it would be a good idea to get you some new, older, clothes."

"You know, I was thinking the same thing."


	3. Chapter 3

It was easy enough to find their way into the colossal sized casino. There were several hover ways to conveniently move people inside. Inside of the shopping arcade, Ro was met with another "fake-sky-on-the ceiling," portrayal. Only, this one cycled through in an hour, going from day time to night time, then back to day again.

"Now this isn't smart," Ro commented. "Rather than helping people to lose track of time, they're going to make them think that they've been in here for days!"

Zee looked up at the color display panel ceiling. "Good point."

There were several shops that Ro would have loved to wander around for hours in, but Zee prodded her along from one store to the next, encouraging her to just stick to the clothing stores.

"This one won't work, it's causing my hair to frizz all over the place!" Ro said, exasperated, throwing another garment over the door of the changing stall for Zee to hang up.

Zee checked the fiber content on the label of the rejected garment. "It's polyester."

"Meaning?" Ro asked, her voice muffled as she was pulling another top on over her head.

"It's more prone to conduct static electricity."

"So what do you suggest?"

"Something with natural fibers."

"This next one should be good then, it's one-hundred percent cotton," she commented, coming out of the stall to model the top for Zee.

Her sarcasm had only slightly hinted of her disappointment in his selection of "older clothes." She was wearing a dowdy, oversized knit sweater that had everything and a kitchen sink tacked to the front. "It think it's safe to say that you've missed the distinction between dressing in older women's clothing, and dressing older."

"I'd have to agree with you," Zee blushed. Even the other husbands who were waiting around for their wives seemed to be snickering at his folly. In a second, the Swiss-army knife-top came over the frame of the door.

"I think we need another store," Ro said, coming out of the dressing stall with an armload of garments that she hadn't even bothered to try on yet.

As some of the garments in her armload were ones that she'd picked out, he knew that she really wasn't fed up with the clothing selection, but that she was becoming tired, which meant that it was probably time to feed her again. "There's a couple of restaurants in the plaza square up ahead," Zee suggested. "Maybe now would be a good time to stop for lunch?"

Ro began to look around for a clock to find out what time it was. She stopped looking once she remembered that there were none. Zee provided her with the time. "It's only noon. We've been making good time so far today, it won't hurt to take a break."

"I guess, I am a little hungry," she admitted, "I only had a small snack for breakfast."

The most impressive thing about this casino so far, had to be the marble statue and fountain replicas. After ordering a plate of food from one of the small indoor cafes, Ro sat down at one of the tables next to one of these fountains. Zee pulled up the chair on the other side of the table. "You know, I've been thinking," Ro commented. "Since we've been together, you've always had that same hologram. It's been two years, and you haven't changed one bit."

"Do you not like this one?" Zee asked.

"No, it's not that," Ro said, wondering if she'd offended him. "It's just that well, people change, they grow older. Do I still look the same as when we first met?"

He didn't want to admit it, but she really didn't look like she'd changed that much. Her face might have lost some of it's youthful baby fat, but it wasn't anything that he'd define as noticeable to human perception. His eyes glazed over as he brought up two stationary images of her, then visually overlapped them. To Ro it was strange to see him zone out, and not know what he was doing.

He ran a filter over the two images and began to cite the differences between the two. "You've grown .978ths of an inch, had a slight increase in circumference in the chest from 35.48 to 36.16 inches and hip area from..."

It had to be one of the more embarrassing moments in her lifeto have a robot calling out her body measurements. "ZEE!" she hissed. He immediately stopped. "The point is, would you really have noticed if I hadn't said anything?"

"No, the change is subtle and gradual enough that it gets overlooked on a day by day basis." He paused then added, "Do you want me to alert you of your progressive physical alterations?" he asked.

Ro sighed, ready to just drop her head into her pasta salad and weep for this poor, ignorant robot. "No, that won't be necessary. Forget I said anything," Ro said, hoping to take the easy way out of a stressful discussion—just forgetting about it.

"Would you like to me to look older?" he asked, his face suddenly aging a couple of years.

"Zee!" Ro gasped, frantically looking around to see if anyone had seen him. There were people everywhere so the chances were very likely someone had, but as no one was still staring in disbelief, they either hadn't noticed the change yet or they weren't curious enough to keep staring. They all looked preoccupied with something else, or they were busy with trying to look like they were busy looking at something else.

Ro left her unfinished plate on the table, grabbed Zee's wrist then began to drag him away from the table. He knew he was in trouble, Ro never left good food unless it was for an important cause.

Fairly well hidden behind a large marble column which Ro had dragged him behind, she stared at him with her arms folded over her chest. He immediately revised his hologram back to the way it was. "I'm sorry," he apologized.

Ro sighed, and the anger melted from her face. She couldn't scold him now. As he stared at her remorsefully with his large, blue eyes she found that she couldn't find it in her to be upset with him. It was like looking into the eyes of a penitent child that in its innocence hadn't known that it'd done wrong. As much as she was sure that Zee had known better, she imagined it was his desire to please her that had caused him to foolishly expose himself, so it was most likely her fault the incident had happened. He'd grown so accustomed to pleasing her and obeying her every whim that in a way it was almost like she'd commanded him to change by bringing the topic up. "Zee, people all over the world spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars trying to look younger. Consider yourself lucky." And with that, she started walking back toward their table, only to find that her plate had been cleared away, and someone else was already sitting at their table. "For dinner, we're definitely finding a sit-down restaurant," she sighed. "Come on, let's go see if Dr. Anderson's has a taste for Olympic sized swimming pools."

"Olympic sized swimming pools," he parroted, his processors occupied with another task that temporarily prevented him from forming complex sentences. On his display view, the words displayed, "Holographic Appearance Alteration program completion..." " ... Success." It was an internal program he'd just created to slowly alter his appearance in minute, near indiscernible increments. He'd taken his current appearance then his final desired appearance of a 40-year old version of himself, and had dispersed the alterations over the course of 80 years. And if Ro ever caught on to what he'd done, he could always recover his image to any previous date that she wished. He wasn't completely inept when it came to figuring out what Ro meant, it just took him longer to discern hidden meanings when she didn't come right out and say them.

There was more of a crowd to push through on their way back out of the forum shops as right in the middle of the walk way, the god of the sea and the goddess of fire were fighting for control of over the world in a blaze of pyrotechniques and hydrokinetic effects in thehourly animatronics show.

Ro stayed close behind Zee as they were walking through the casino to get to the front desks. It was discouraged for minors to be caught idly standing around the slot machines for too long, so the best advice seemed to be just to hurry through and stick to the main walkways rather than weaving in and around the card tables or slot machines. For having never been in this casino before, Zee was an excellent navigator. "How is it that you always know where we're going?" she asked him.

He was programmed to know how to find the resources to find out where he was going. In this case, he'd used the fire escape route map to get a general overview of the casino's layout. "When we passed those elevators, there was a key detailing the quickest escape routes in case of a fire. I'm just going off of what the map said."

"How resourceful," she commented. It was still very impressive as such emergency maps didn't usually state the location of all these card tables, yet Zee was avoiding them effortlessly as if he knew they'd be there before he saw them. They past a couple more shops, but they didn't stop off, even though Ro still hadn't found a new outfit. There would be plenty of other shops to look in later.

The lines were short at this time as most everyone who had planned on an early morning departure had already left. "You can sit over there, it'll just take a few minutes," he told her once they got close to the front desks.

"You're getting good at this, I take it," she smiled.

Ten minutes later, Zee returned to where she was waiting on the couch. "How are you holding up?" he asked.

"I'm not tired yet, if that's what you mean," she replied.

"There's three more major casinos on this side of the boulevard, and seven on the other. We could go up the one side, then hit the others on the way back to where our car is parked. I think it would be wise to drive to the ones on the other ends of the strip rather than try to walk to all of them.

"You know, what we should have done, it just driven to one end and walked all the way to the other, none of this back and forth crud."

It was actually something he was thinking of suggesting this morning, but he'd been distracted by breakfast plans and check out. "Depending on how much we get done today, I can always go and check out the computers at night while you're sleeping."

She wasn't sure how to bring up the fact that it made her nervous when they were separated. So far things were working out really well, but what if something did happen? She felt more comforted being in the lobby with him while he was infiltrating than she would asleep in their room alone. "If I'm stuck awake worrying about you, that's not going to do me any better than going with you. I think we're better off if we stick together."

She was... worried about him? She actually was concerned with the outcome of his existence? He didn't know why but her statement surprised him. He knew that she cared about his plight for freedom, but to worry showed a stronger connection as worry led to more health deteriorating factors such as stress. Her words marked that she had a stronger emotional connection to him than he realized, or maybe he was just over interpreting? The English language was such a complicated language as there were so many words that were capable of describing slight variations of the same feeling. There were so many hidden meanings that could be derived from one simple word or statement...there were so many other connotations, all of which could be completely subjective. To master such a language, was truly one of the greater accomplishments in life... Sadly, in every day colloquial speech, even someone with extensive knowledge of the language, might hold in reserve their knowledge as it wouldn't be understood by someone without a similar appreciation. Laziness of speech might also be an explanation. Ro might have actually meant to say that it would cause her greater anxiety if she were left alone, but it was probably easier just to say that it worried her. Zee sighed, he was sure one of his programmers must have had a side degree as an English major.

"Shall we go then?" he asked, extending his hand to help her up.

She took his hand, but with drew it momentarily at the same time that Zee heard a small snap sound. "You shocked me!" Ro accused him, then reached for his hand again to pull herself up.

Worriedly Zee withdrew his hand from hers and began to analyze it. He didn't see any sparks flying from any of his joints, and he certainly couldn't think of anything he might have done to damage himself, but Ro had just pointed out that he had shocked her so something must be wrong. He began running a scan over his electrical system," Electrical system's report, shows that all circuits are closed. Voltage meter reading at…"

Ro sighed, and even started laughing, which immediately let him know that he'd was reading too deeply into things again. "I guess even when you're the world's smartest walking, talking, can opener, it's easy to forget the fact that metal is a good conductor for static electricity."

Great, so it really was his fault, but just not in the manner he'd originally thought the cause to be. "You know what?" Ro continued. "I think it's a form of punishment that the casinos devised for people trying to leave. They have all of these heavy carpets everywhere that people walk over, thus supercharging the amount of electricity they're carrying. So, when they finally go to push the button for the elevator, or the door handle to leave, they get shocked! Don't you see? That's why all the handles on those slots machines have plastic balll-shaped caps on them! To invite people to play longer because it won't shock them!"

He wasn't sure how to express his next thoughts, as by his own standards, they seem farfetchedsince any time he made a contradiction to something Ro said she usually had an explanation for herself that made him feel foolish, but he stated his thoughts anyway. "Ro, I think you're thinking about this a little too much. I don't think they purposely put metal objects in places where they're likely to shock people for leaving the premises."

She couldn't argue with the logic of his conclusion, so she wouldn't try to debate it any further. It was a ridiculous idea. "You're probably right, but you never know. After all, isn't Vegas all about the art of deception, trickery, and illusion?"

Not surprisingly, there was no convenient hover way to escort people from the casino. If they wanted to leave, they'd have to exert more energy to walk themselves out rather than being carried out on a moving platform. The next casino featured a Polynesian, tropical, theme. There was a large flaming volcano in the front, which had a constant steam cloud rising out of the top from the water spilling down the sides. Once htey were inside, Zee suggested, "If you just want to sit on that bench and watch the fish in the aquarium, I'll be right back."

"You sure you don't want help?"

"Well... if you see any security guards running over in a hurry, it might save me a couple of seconds if you're holding the door open for our retreat..."

"Ha, ha," Ro forced a mockful-laugh. His overconfidence was going to get him in trouble some day.

While Zee checked the computer Ro sat down on the bench to watch the angel fish, puffer fish, tangs, sharks, and other exotic sea creatures swim around in the newly constructed 100,000-gallon saltwater aquarium behind the front desks. All of the water made her nervous, because if something happened to the glass polymer, such as a stray gunshot from one of Bennet's agents, there was enough water for her to drown in. Not to mention some of the animals inside of the tank didn't look too friendly. The thought of having them wash up over her head if the tank burst made her skin crawl. She wasn't going to be suggesting to Zee that they stay at this hotel.

"Not here," she heard Zee's familiar words. "There was someone with the same last name though, but it wasn't him."

"How can you be sure?"

"He already checked out today, which means he's probably not staying for the convention."

"Guess not then."

Based on the fact that the next casino seemed more family oriented and that there actually was a standard room available that night, Ro decided that they'd be staying at the pirate-themed hotel.

"So what room are we in?" Ro after had Zee had surreptitiously returned from behind the door marked, "employees only," and had already given her the expected news that Dr. Anderson wasn't there.

"I'm not sure yet, I still have to pay for it."

"Why didn't you take care of that while you were up there?"

Knowing that she'd really just been asking why he hadn't just put them as occupants for the room, he replied, "It would be dishonest to book the room for free." He really was a, "robot with a conscience." Zee went through the process of renting a room again, and paid for it with his cred card.

"You want to put anything in the room before our next stop?" Zee asked, handing her the key card.

She looked at him, with an eyebrow quizically raised. "We haven't bought anything, so both my hands are still free," she explained.

"We might fix that. I'm told that there's a large mall featuring hourly fashion shows, right next door. I'm sure you'll be able to find the outfit you're looking for there." The instant he'd said "mall" he had Ro's full undivided attention. She was reenergized, and began to lead the way down the street again.

Bennet scowled at all of the people exiting and entering the casino, the creases in his chin deepening from the stern frown that was beginning to permanently etch itself even more into his face with each bitter thought of a past failed mission. As he continued to think of the synthoid he found himself clenching his jaw a little tighter and his eyes narrowing more sourly on all of the people who were passing in front of him. In exchange, the cheery tourists returned his tart stare with a look of distaste for the uniformed figure of authority who had the audacity to look at them so suspiciously.

While he'd assigned one of his agents the responsibility to observe them with holoviewers, he still felt the need to scrutinize every person for himself, without a holograph filter. It was true that he didn't trust any of these people, as in times past they'd already proven that holoviewers weren't always a guarantee against seeing through one of Zeta and Ro's disguises. And being the leader of the operation, he felt his experience with tracking Zeta made him the undeclared, best candidate for being the extra watch for couples or people with strange behavior.

So far, the only suspicious behavior anyone was exhibiting was that of curiosity towards their presence, or aloofness, in that they were trying to avoid him and the other agents entirely as not to remotely get involved with their business. Neither acts were the kind of suspicious behavior that Zeta or Ro would be sporting, though.

He continued to observe the people, smugly ignoring their curious gazes, or taking in the harsh criticism of their spiteful stares. It was common knowledge that people feared those with power over them (unless that power was being used to benefit them) which was probably the reason for those who were giving him suspicious glances. Any gratitude for the service that he was providing them for homeland security was completely lost to them in the shadows of his dark black uniform.

Unfortunately, going incognito had not been an option for this assignment, so they were stuck with their give-away uniforms. There were too many different casinos, each with their own security forces, to have alerted them all of the situation to permit them to go undercover. It was simply easier to gain access to restricted areas with their uniforms, rather than having to prove their identity with badges alone.

Still, he didn't think that it would be too much to ask that these people show some small degree of sympathy or at least respect for his now-becoming, loathsome obligation to protect them. The least they could do would be to not stare at them like they were a chewed-up piece of gum that they'd just stepped in. With so many other security guards around to keep the casinos in order, he'd have thought that these people would be used to seeing people walking around in uniforms.

Well, at least in a few minutes, he wouldn't have to worry about what these people thought of them as shift changes would be over, and all of his agents would be out of sight in their assigned waiting places again. "How you holding up, West?" he asked.

Zeta's and Ro's sports car was compact, just like the rest of the vehicle, making it just a little difficult for West to reach behind him to his back pocket where his transmitter was. After rearranging his EMP rifle from the perfect position he'd had it aimed in—right at the center of the hatch for the trunk—he was able to reach his pocket to turn on his transmitter. "Still here, sir. It's a little cramped, as it was the last time…" It was his second time being stuck in the truck of their car. The purpose of this position was to wait for Zeta to return to the car, then to fire on him with the EMP rifle once he opened the trunk. Of all of the other agents, he and two other girls were the only ones with a small enough body build to fit comfortably in the trunk for the hour long shift.

"Just hang in there, West. Your shift is over in a few minutes," Bennet's voice spoke through his ear piece. The ear piece prevented Bennet's voice from being heard from the outside or inside of the car. And as West was sure no one was in the car as he hadn't heard anyone approach it, he had no problems with verbally replying.

"It's actually not that bad, even the trunk has cut pile carpet!"

Bennet didn't laugh at his joke, but moved onto the next agent. "Rush, how are things checking in?"

"No new check-ins yet. They checked out at 9:30, and haven't been back since. There was nothing in their room."

"But their car is still here, so we know they'll be coming back," Bennet concluded the analysis.

"You do know that this wouldn't be the first time I'd have to file an impound slip…" Rush added, ending the transmission and suggesting that just because their car was here didn't mean they'd be back for it.

There was always an equal chance that they wouldn't be coming back for their car, but because the cred report stated that food had been purchased around noon, he was sure they were still here. It was actually only on a small suspicion that he'd decided to check the cred reports at all. They'd been previously overlooked as he'd had all of his defenses focused on their blockade at the airport. It was a rude surprise to find out that Zeta and Ro had already checked in and out of the hotel, but more so because it meant that they'd completely avoided their plan by using the near-forgotten alternative of driving. It was a pity too, as it would have been easy to set up a watch on the roadway.

It was around 10:00 that they'd discovered their hotel reservation—too late to catch them in their room. They'd also had been too late to catch them having lunch. Now they were just hoping that they'd be able to catch them when they returned to their car. The small tip that Zeta had given the valet, was what had led them to find their car, and what had led to the conclusion that they'd driven in, and that they hadn't evaded them at the airport. They never really seemed to stand any chance at apprehending them if they were following behind. Success, in Bennet's mind would be best achieved by luring them onto a playing field where they had the advantage.

"Sir!" the voice echoed in his ear piece?"

"What is it, Fisher?" Bennet asked eagerly, recognizing the voice of the agent to be the one he'd assigned to frequently check the cred report."

"We just got a hit!"

"Good," he commended his efforts.

"It's a room reservation at Treasure Island."

"Even better," Bennet grinned. He changed his transmitter frequency. "West , did you hear that?" he asked.

"Yes I did, sir," he sounded excited.

He hoped he wouldn't disappoint him, because he wasn't going to be asking West to join the team move over to TI, but to see if he'd wait in the trunk of the car for another hour. Rather than complete his image of a cruel dictator, he decided to offer West the choice. And if he manipulated his words, so that his option sounded better than the alternative, he'd call it leadership, rather than tyranny. "West, if the they've found another hotel, chances are they'll be coming back shortly to move their car into the other hotel's parking garage. You can either continue to wait for them, or we can continue with the shift rotations."

If they continued with the shift changes he'd be assigned the task of observing the people on the street with holoviewers. With the possible glory of being the one to deactivate Zee with the EMP rifle, waiting in this current position seemed more gratifying. "Sir! I could wait here all day and all night for them!"

While he knew he couldn't allow him to do that, he was actually impressed by his enthusiasm. "Rush is going to be your back up so if there's anything you need, let her know. The air recycler should be good for three more hours, so you should have no problem there. " West knew he was referring to the device they'd crammed in the trunk with him that filtered air for carbon dioxide, and had a small ventilation tube that pumped fresh air in from the outside of the car. The device was as quiet as his breathing, and with the car turned on, it would become completely drowned out over the hum of the car engine. "We're going to begin moving base further down the strip, so reserves will be limited during this transitional time."

"You can count on me!" West said excitedly.

He'd never admit it to his agent, but he wouldn't even count on him to mail his grandmother a birthday card on time. As he pondered over his last thought, he actually realized that he probably was being a little biased against West. While he could easily justify his incentive to keep West as far away from the situation as possible based on his past performances, overall West really was one of his most dedicated agents. However, for all his bravery, he could do well to use a little more reservation or common sense in his application. Jumping into a situation without analyzing the consequences was sadly one of West's fortes. If he could just get him to think a little bit more before he acted, he might not be as inclined to keep him away from the major responsibilities, and wouldn't have to keep finding ways to keep him close to the van, or locked inside of a car trunk.

Now, he just had to give the word, and everyone would begin the process of changing base to the swashbuckling location of TI.

Zee was correct in that Ro did find an outfit that made her look older, several in fact, but as shopping wasn't very revitalizing she settled on just getting one outfit so that they could go to dinner sooner. Dinner was beginning to sound good as she hadn't had a very filling breakfast or lunch. So when Zee made the suggestion that they head back to get their car and find some place to eat, she was more than willing to indulge.


	4. Chapter 4

The sky was beginning to get dark as they walked back down the boulevard towards the Paris hotel. Ro had already changed into her new outfit and was carrying her old clothes in the old shopping bag. Thankfully even after taking her jeans off several times while trying on clothes, she still had the claim ticket for their car. "I know it's less than a mile's walk, but why don't we just take a taxi?" she asked. "That way we won't have to pay another valet to park the car."

It seemed a little contradicting to be worried about tipping a valet, yet wishing to ride in taxis all of the time. Still, Ro was a strange, yet unique girl. He wouldn't ever dare try to understand the reasoning behind her logic. There were several things he was beginning to understand about the human mind. Such as how it could be compelled to make irrational decisions based on whimsical factors such as integrity, values, and love, but mostly in Ro's cases, none of these factors really came into play, but her decision basis was usually just because, "She felt like it." Understanding a woman's intuition or mind was something that he didn't even think that male humans had grasped yet.

"There is a hoverail system that travels from one end of the strip to the other…" he started to suggest, but when he saw the loss of excitement on Ro's face, he rejected his own suggestion, "but with all the stops it would make, a taxi would probably be faster."

"And the car's not going to care which garage it's parked in, so it's all good."

It was easy to find a taxi as there were several just parked along the side of the road, waiting for tired walkers to finally give in and pay for a ride to save their aching feet. There was a special lane, completely devoted to taxis, with special side pull outs as stops. It was almost like a bus system, but the only stops were the ones that the riders requested. At one of the yellow striped curbs, Zee found a taxi waiting. He opened the door for Ro, and she climbed into the cab. Once Zee shut the door, the bot asked where they would like to go. Zee didn't know where Ro had in mind of going for dinner, so he allowed her to answer.

"Egypt." As Egypt was not located on the same continent, this location was rejected as being possible locations, so the bot repeated the question again. "The pyramid hotel," Ro revised their destination. This response was acceptable so the bot started the fare counter and pulled away from the curb. As this lane was reserved only for cabs, there wasn't much of an issue of having to use defined motor skills to maneuver through traffic.

"What do you think you'll find to eat there?" he asked. While Ro seemed to fancy herself for having exotic tastes, usually the first thing she settled for was the most recognizable dish on the menu. He wasn't familiar with Egyptian cuisine, so maybe Ro knew something he didn't, which was what was enticing her to go there.

"I don't know. I just thought the decor would be nice."

In his mind, this translated to the fact that they would be looking for the international food court for something to eat, and would be admiring the ornamentation as they wandered around looking for it.

Zee shrugged, and sat back in his seat for the short ride, watching the fare go up one cred every nine seconds. After arriving at the casino, and paying the taxi bot, they entered inside the casino after passing under the watchful gaze of the large sphinx that was guarding the entrance to the great pyramid. Inside the pyramid, Ro certainly was amazed by the ancient hieroglyphics and the statues of the several ancient Gods, but she found the feeling to be soon fleeting. The amazing beauty just simply couldn't overcome the feeling that she was trapped inside of a large tomb. Even worse, was when she began watching the people ride the 45 degree inclinators up to the rooms that ran all along the inside perimeter of the pyramid, she was overcome with a feeling of instability and vertigo. All of the rooms were overhanging the floor below as they came to a point at the top of the pyramid. There were no supporting beams and no architectural devices to reassure her that the weight of the rooms above weren't going to collapse inward into the open space of the casino. The lack of any visual means of structural support bothered her. "Zee, I hate to do this to you, but I've changed my mind."

"You don't want to eat here?" he asked. If he admitted that he was surprised by her changing her mind, he would have been lying.

"That would be correct."

"Do you just want to look around then?" he asked.

"You can if you want to. I'm just going to be making my way outside...out from under the large, heavy rooms with their overweight occupants, heavy luggage, and the weighty carved statues..."

This did surprise him as he had thought that she wanted to look around, regardless of if she had wanted to eat there or was just using it as an excuse for them to stop here. He wondered if he should bother to point out to her that when they were walking around the casino floor of the Paris, that they had the entire weight of the hotel rooms above them. "Should I try to see if he's staying here?" Zee asked, turning around to face her as she was already backing up, heading out the way they'd come in.

"If you do, you're on you're own. This place gives me the creeps."

Zee thought over it for a moment, then decided, "We can save this one for last. If we don't find him anywhere else, then I'll come back alone and check."

Their taxi had already left by the time they came out of the pyramid, but Ro insisted that Zee not bother to call for another one. The medieval castle was right across the street and was advertising a spectacular dinner show, complete with jousting knights, a flaming dragon, a magical wizard, and a beautiful princess in distress.

"Are you claustrophobic?" Zee asked her as they made their way over to the large, white castle.

"No, it's just I didn't like how all those rooms were stacked up on top of each other with nothing to support them from underneath."

He thought about describing the technique used to hold up arches with having a key stone at the top, but he doubted that Ro would be comforted by it or that she'd see the connection with a triangular shaped object. And he could already predict her response if he told her that it'd been standing for over four decades meaning that it was probably not going to collapse any time soon. Ro would just see the time length as growing closer to the time that it will collapse, rather than seeing it as proof of its stability.

The castle with its gothic turrets and colorful Arthurian decor, reminded Ro of an old English castle. At the front of the castle there was a bell tower that stood guard over the moat. Inside of the bell tower, there was a wizard with a floor length white beard, dressed in long purple robes, that was welcoming people inside of the casino with his arms wide open, as well as keeping watch on the fire breathing dragon outside of the entrance. They way the wizard was so high up in the tower, reminded her all too much of the time when she'd jumped out of a much taller tower with Zee less than two weeks ago. She hoped they wouldn't be having a repeat episode, and hurried under the tower, over the drawbridge, and into the casino. Things were looking good though, as so far they hadn't seen any sign of the feds.

The reason being, was that Bennet was busy making preparations to place a stake out inside of their newly rented room for their return. They'd discretely made their way over to the casino in the large NSA van by means of the lesser-used side roads. If they'd taken the most direct route, down the boulevard itself, everyone on the street would have been alerted of their presence. Bennet instructed the agent driving to park about a block away, on the strangely-named street, "Spring Mountain Road." Maybe the name was just a way of reminiscing about the environment that certainly didn't surround the Las Vegas era, he wondered.

"Have someone keep an eye on the street traffic," he instructed his agents before climbing out of the van. "Wait here in the van until I give word to move out," he added, not needing an entourage to follow him to the security room to speak with the captain there, or to review the video footage of the incident to see if it really was Zeta and Ro that had checked out the room.

After the typical formal introductions with the security chief, and after presenting his official NSA badge, he was taken to an open computer where he could look through the captured video from the hotel's lobby. The cred report had placed the transaction around 1:41 in the afternoon, so it was an easy task to find what he was looking for as he had a very good idea of the time frame. And with so many cameras, there wasn't the slightest doubt in his mind that it was him. He had at least three different angles to view the same footage and confirm that it was Zeta and Ro. But what he found most puzzling of all, was how he saw Zeta sneak into the back room, change into one of the employees, go back and check one of the computers, then return only to wait in a line again to make the actual room reservation with the girl. Was he purposely trying to get caught? It was as if he was deliberately trying to get him to notice that he was renting a room. Did Zeta have a plan of his own for them? Maybe they were being led into a cleverly devised trap themselves?

Even stranger than how Zeta was waiting in line to rent the room when he could have easily rented it when he first had access to the computer as infiltration units were taught to, was how they exited the casino rather than going up to their room. After renting a room, wasn't it common practice to go and see it or locate it? It had to be a setup--for them. Somehow, they had figured out they were here in Las Vegas as well. He surmised that Zeta was just renting the room as a decoy for them to stake out as a cover up for his other plans. Still, the convention wasn't until another two days. Even if Zeta could stand outside all night long, the girl wouldn't. There were enough hotel charges on the cred report to show that Zeta did have a past history of renting a hotel room nearly every night of the week... but then why was he doing it so deliberately this time?

Complex questions didn't always have complex answers. Bennet began to think about the matter. He tried to recall what procedures Zeta had used in the past when renting a room. But, as he couldn't think of any specific examples he had to conclude that he'd either: forgotten, that there were too few for him to remember, or that this was the first time he'd paid notice to the matter. As he thought on it further, this probably was the first time he'd seen Zeta renting a room on video. Then, it suddenly made sense. Were Zeta just assigning himself and the girl the room, there would be no need to pay for it, and thus he would not have been receiving notifications on the reports that he was renting rooms every night. Thus, this had to be the same manner in which Zeta always rented a room, in person, and in open view.

He couldn't figure out why yet, but that didn't matter. He'd solved one problem, but was still baffled by the next. Why hadn't they gone up the room after renting it? On the tape he could see Zeta handing Ro the room key, but that didn't mean that this would be the hotel she slept in for the night. It was still early in the day. They could still rent another room at another hotel.

With this possibility in mind, he decided that it would be best if he didn't send all of his agents into the room for the stake out, but that he keep some in reserve should Zeta make any more expenditures that might suggest that the synthoid had other plans that were different than returning to this room later in the evening.

However, the fact that he knew that they weren't in the room was very helpful. If they weren't in the room, he'd have no problem sending his agents to it, to wait for their return. He didn't know how long it would be until they returned to the hotel (if they were going to at all) so he had to act quickly. "I need the video footage for the hallway with room 1478 on it," Bennet instructed the security officer that had been assigned to answer any of his questions, or to, in general, "Get him whatever he needs."

The room was going to be on the fourteenth floor of the right hotel tower. He pulled up the hotel map that the room service caters used to identify rooms, and found the room. As all the floors had the video cameras located in the same place he identified the two cameras that might have any footage of the room entrance on their footage.

"We don't have continual feed on the hotel floors as that would take up too much memory, and there isn't really much theft to worry about," he began explaining as he opened the file, "so the cameras only record when they detect motion. I can't guarantee it'll have captured the time period you're looking for," he apologized.

"I don't need a time period. I just need to be sure that they're not in the room." Bennet explained, taking over the computer again. For the morning hours there was more captured footage, but in the afternoon, there was less than a dozen recorded events of people getting off of the elevator and walking to their rooms in the hallway. None of these people appeared to be going to the room Zeta had rented. The area was clear, he could have his agents move in.

The hotel lobby of the castle was decorated with medieval-style flags, shields, statues, and even had live entertainers dressed in period costume walking around. But they weren't here to rent a room, or for Zee to see if Dr. Anderson had. They were on their way to catch a tournament!

Not surprisingly, there wasn't any seating for the next dinner seating and showing. Zee had the waiter put their names down for two reservations for the next showing which would be starting in another hour. In the mean time, they were free to look around.

"Having to wait isn't that bad," Ro began to explain to Zee as they made their way to towards the mezzanine level were there was a shopping village.

"Just think, all this walking is increasing my appetite. I might actually be able to eat half of an entire serving!"

The serving portions here were rather large compared to the other restaurants Ro at in. It was ridiculous how they charged so much for a large plateful of food that only a sumo-wrestler would probably be able to finish off in one sitting. And it was clearly ridiculous to think that anyone would take their food home as leftovers as there weren't any refrigerators in the standard rooms. And, while there were small refrigerators in the suites, no one with that amount of money would care to eat cold leftovers, as there weren't any microwaves to reheat the preserved food.

"It doesn't matter how much or how little you eat, as long as you aren't hungry when you're finished," he reassured her as it really didn't matter to him if she didn't eat enough to get their money's worth, as long as she was taken care of. He certainly wouldn't care if she turned down a 3lb Maine lobster, because she changed her mind and didn't want to eat something that still had its carcass on her plate.


	5. Chapter 5

With all of the jugglers, magicians, and minstrels making their way through the shopping village, Ro was almost fooled into thinking that they were at a real Ren-fair. She easily lost track of the time amidst the entertainers and barefoot dancers, and almost forgot about her hunger. It was Zee who reminded her that they should be heading back to the arena to claim their dinner reservations after the hour had almost passed.

There were rich, jewel-colored upholstered chairs in the dining area of the arena and brilliant gold filigree chandeliers above them. After they were seated their serving wench came promptly to their table. There was a short menu to look over--as the meal was standardized to make sure that the show didn't have to be delayed because people were still ordering, and to make sure everyone was done eating by the time the show was over so the room could be prepared for the next showing. There was only a small selection of side dishes to chose from, which in spite of being a very decisive person, Ro was still having a hard time choosing.

Zee could see their waiter was trying hard not to roll her eyes. There were only five options. "How hard could it be to just pick one?" he could sense her thinking. "Which one are you going to get?" he asked her, his question subtly hinting for her to hurry up and make a decision, though hoping not to seem like he was pressuring her.

"I can't decide between the baked potato, or the wrapped vegetables," she said, ignoring the artistic names on the menu.

"She'll have the baked potato, and I'll have the wrapped vegetables," he then announced.

With that finalized, their waiter left their table. "You know, I keep forgetting that you don't eat the things you order," she smiled. Now she was going to be able to try both dishes.

"It's not like they care if I'm not the who's going to eat it."

While everyone else was finalizing their decisions from the limited selection, Merlin the wizard, was putting on a comedy performance on the stage floor.

Shortly after, the servers returned from the kitchen with large wooden trays on their shoulders with steaming pewter goblets neatly balanced on top. Following behind them were other waiters with the trays with the entrees.

A large platter of baked, seasoned chicken with large broccoli clumps, spiced and adorned in a vinaigrette sauce, was each placed before Zee and Ro.

The pewter goblets were filled with a salty chicken broth from what Ro could tell. Their side dishes were still being prepared, but Ro wasn't going to wait for their food to get cold before it arrived.

"Oh..." Ro sighed, then began to shuffle through the articles on their table. She was lifting up her plate, moving the table lantern aside, and even appeared to be looking under the tablecloth, or on the floor for something.

"What is it?" Zee asked.

"I didn't get a fork."

"I'll go get you one," he offered, standing up. He also began calculating the slight tip deduction Ro would later suggest their waiter be penalized for, for having not brought them utensils with the dish, or having them already on the table.

"Hold up," Ro pulled him back down into his seat. As she looked around at all of the people who had started eating, she noticed that they were all eating with their hands. "I'm getting the impression that we're not supposed to have forks... Either that or these people all need to get some table manners."

"Would you like for me to ask for one anyway?" he asked

"When in Rome..." Ro shrugged her shoulders then took as sip of the broth from her cup.

"You mean Camelot." From the surprised, yet pleased look on her face at his comment, he could tell that there was hope for him yet.

The show started shortly after their side dishes were brought out. While it may have originally been centered on the story of King Arthur, little remained true to the legendary tale, or even to the time period. Unlike the upstairs shopping floor, the performance was not to period at all.

The show opened with several kings seated around a large round table, filling up the air with testosterone as they argued over who amongst them really was the most deserving of the fair maiden Camille's heart. Ro could only imagine what kind of an Aphrodite this woman must be to have 12 bachelor-kings seeking to win her heart. It was then decided amongst the quarreling lords that a grand jousting tournament would be the best way to fairly decide who deserved to name her their bride.

Without a second thought, everyone ran from the stage to get their swords and their horses ready for the tournament-everyone except for one person. Having originally classified him as just another "background actor" Ro soon realized that she'd misjudged the young knight who was standing guard at the door to be a superfluous character, when in actuality, he was the protagonist of the story!

It was revealed to the audience through this knight's monologue of his heart's worries, that he was already deeply in love with Camille and that she was also in love with him. In a competition to decide who would be most deserving to marry her, it would not do well for him to lose.

Then, just as he was about to head off to tell her of the competition, Camille conveniently entered the room to confront him of the exciting news that was spreading through the town. While it was clear that she'd heard that a tournament was to be held, from her naïve curious questions she apparently didn't know yet that it was with the intention of winning her favor. Adding to the emotional tension, the knight didn't seem inclined to tell her just what was at stake, but assured her that he was going to be the winner, even if all he did was painfully endure every other king's lance shattering across his chest. In a side comment, his reason being that it t would be better that he endure these physical beatings now rather than having to later endure the emotional lances piercing through his heart.

They then exited the stage, and the stage curtains closed so the stage could quickly be converted to the soft sod turf for the jousting tournament. Behind the curtain, the backdrops were changed while the wood flooring panels were removed to reveal the cushioning dirt. In front of the curtain there were trumpeters, minstrels, and other characters discussing the tournament while the stage changes were taking place well to all nobility. The event became more exciting for the audience when Camille overheard the kings' true motivation for the tournament, and especially when she realized what kind of odds the knight was up against.

With lances filled with splintered wood chips to give a realistic effect of them shattering on each of the king's and knight's shields, the tournament was simply spectacular. The sod stage surface was highly appropriate as even with the consideration that all of the falls were choreographed, the actors were still being knocked off of their horses onto the ground below. Not surprisingly the underdog knight surpassed all odds and staged a miraculous victory over all the other competitors. As was expected, the knight was declared the champion.

By the end of the competition Ro was finished with her dinner and dessert was quietly brought out while the stage was reverted back. Dessert was a small pastry dish which despite its lack of sugar, Ro found to be absolutely delicious. "See if you can ask her for another one of these," Ro said, helping herself to Zee's pastry after finishing hers. "After all, it's not like they're going to know that you're not the one who's going to eat it."

When the stage curtains reopened it was not the brightly lit, rich colored courtroom of the kings, but a room nearly the complete opposite. It was dismal and dark and rather unkempt. The only objects that had much color in the room were the beakers of colored liquid, which were releasing colored smoke into the basement air of this secret lair. At the end of the competition, Camille had awarded the knight her token handkerchief as well as a little unreserved victory kiss for the champion. The innocence of an extra generous kiss was overlooked as being well deserved because of the knight's hard effort and great accomplishment. Overlooked by all except for Morgan, the sorceress.

Morgan paced restlessly back and forth in the dark room. She was rather upset with her daughter, Camille, but more upset with herself. How could she have been so blind to their romance until this point? She had seen it in her daughter's heart that she loved this knight, from the way that she kissed him. No it was not just a deserving reward for being the champion, it had deeper convictions that that.

The knight's victory was ruining her plan to take over one of the King's dominions The knight would have to be disposed of and her daughter convinced or rather induced into subservience and obedience again. Her control had weakened, and she needed to revive it.

Morgan then served as the hostess for a spectacular colored smoke and laser show as she began mixing the beakers to create colored smoke backgrounds for the laser lights to reflect off of as she brewed up her evil potions. The smoke eventually filled the stage, and when it cleared, thanks to large industrial fans, the set had changed again.

In the new set, the knight, Camille, and several of the participants from the tournament were gathered inside a large dining room area, celebrating with several toasts to the knight for his victory. The merry making seemed to be at its apex when monster-like creatures suddenly burst through the vellum stained glass windows and began to attack the occupants in the room. The ugliest of all the monsters grabbed Camille and began to carry her out the window.

The knight yelled for it to stop, rushing toward the mechanized monster, but it completely ignored him and then began to fly with hidden jet propulsion, carrying Camille with it. She screamed and kicked but it wouldn't drop her. Eventually it flew off the side of the stage, signaling their escape. The knight was left to help defend the kings and the other people from the monsters that were still retreating. In the end, the stage had been turned into a huge mess of overturned chairs and tables, complete with several people nursing fake injuries. The knight stood with his back to the audience, his head lowered and his sword still in his hand, hanging heavily at his side.

"Looks like we got the best of them," one of the men congratulated themselves on having defeated and driven the monsters away.

"She's gone…" the knight mumbled. They'd not won. He knew better than to boast of their victory. Clearly, the monsters had come for one thing, Camille—as once they had her, they began to retreat. Had they not retreated, most everyone in the room would be dead.

"Who's gone?" the man asked, having been unaware of her kidnapping.  
"I'm going to find her and rescue her!" the knight announced ignoring his

question.

"Where will you look? You have no idea where they've taken her," a less

ignorant bystander asked.

"Merlin," the knight muttered. "Those creatures were not from this world. I will go and seek out his advice as he knows more about the magical world more than anyone else here."

Morgan watched the knight's proclamation in the reflection of her cauldron in the middle of the room. Things were going well with her plan. It would easy enough to stage an accident and have the heroic knight fail at his attempt to rescue the fair maiden. Undoubtedly Merlin would advise the knight that it was she who had dispatched the monsters, which would inevitably lead him right to her, and right into her trap.

As she laughed evilly, Camille was dragged into the room by two large ogres then thrown on the floor before Morgan.

"Why are you doing this?" she cried, angrily.

"Now is that any way to speak to your mother?"

"You're no mother of mine," Camille spat, wishing that it were true.

""My daughter, no matter how much you wish it weren't true, you can't escape from it. It's in your blood." While Camille had been separated from her in her early child hood, and taught to suppress her sorceress powers, the magic was still within her. And while she was banished from ever seeing her daughter, that didn't mean that she still wasn't her mother.

"That doesn't mean that I have to like it."

"Well, this will only take a second if your cooperate, or you can make things difficult," Morgan said, snapping her fingers.

As the ogres reached forward to take her by the arms again, Camille's magical heritage became apparent as a fire spell exploded around her, throwing them away. In retaliation, Morgan directed another spell towards Camille, which she deflected. The two sorceresses were then engaged in a fire war of magic spells and special effects. In the end, however, Camille was no match for Morgan and found herself caught by one of her spells.

"Now you're mine," Morgan laughed evilly approaching Camille with a gold bracelet. The audience was unable to see her place it on Camille as the lights went dark and the set underwent an enormous transformation in just a few seconds. It was Zee who figured out how this was possible.

"We're in a large rotating room."

"You want to run that by me again?" Ro asked.

"Rather than changing the set again, the room slowly rotated to another angle."

"I didn't feel anything," Ro protested.

"That's because the diameter of the room is so large that the angled inertia..."

"Shh! It's starting again!" Ro silenced him. In this scene, the knight was confronting Merlin about the strange flying monsters that had carried Camille off.

"Flying monsters you say?" the wizard parroted the knight, while stroking his long white beard and pacing around his room. The room on the stage was filled with several gyroscopic instruments with telescopes, books and maps strewn about everywhere. The knight was actually making a little bit of a comedic act trying to follow the wizard around the room without stepping or knocking over anything. "This is indeed troubling news. It would seem that Camille has invoked the wrath of the powerful sorceress Morgan, for I can think of no other being wicked enough or powerful enough to summon demons to their side. And once Morgan is upset, her retribution will be great. It may already be too late for Camille. If Morgan is set on revenge, she'll stop at nothing to get it, and she'll crush those in her way of achieving it. I'm afraid it's a fearsome and lost cause. I'm sorry."

The knight was more than heartbroken at this news and solemnly took the wizard's advice. "What!" Ro hissed quietly. "He can't just forget about her!" Her confidence was restored when the knight replied, "Regardless of odds, it is my duty as a knight to go and save her, or die trying. It would be best that leave, as I would rather be dead, than alive without her."

"Go then, her castle lies between the twin mountain pass. The path is very dangerous as there are thieves and monsters and the entrance is guarded by a fearsome dragon. I'm sorry that I cannot go with you at this time, but I'll see if I can manage another way," Merlin said, while shuffling through his spell books. However, when he looked up as he finished speaking, the knight had already left.

Not surprisingly, Zee had been correct about the rotating stage. As the knight left the castle scene, the stage set lit up to reveal a 180 degree panoramic set. The set started out as a woodland area with rocks and boulders as parapets then changed into the stone walls of a castle. The knight slowly began walking from one end, around the set, when thieves jumped out from behind stage props and an intense sword battles followed. The knight gradually made his way around the set as he continued to fight off monsters and bandits. It was cleverly choreographed so that the knight was continually moving forward as the platform the audience was on slowly rotated to keep up and keep him as the center. It was sheer brilliance.

As the knight got closer to the end of the set more lights turned on, extending the view of the set to include the entrance to Morgan's castle, as well as the red dragon guarding it.

To Ro, the knight's victory over the red dragon seemed a little easy, but then she could see from the producer's stand point, that making a robotic dragon of that size also move around the stage for a more extensive duel would just be asking for more trouble.

The knight warily entered the castle gate, and the lights went dark again. Zee informed Ro that the stage was rotating just they a few more degrees so that they were facing center front again. The lights undimmed and indeed, the set was back at Morgan's dungeon. Camille was nowhere to be seen, but Morgan was there, hovering over her cauldron watching the knight fight his way to her castle. Rather than being displeased that he'd made it this far, she was actually impressed. A new plot was forming in her mind, one much better and more evil than her last.

Morgan's evil laughter continued to echo as the lights went dim yet again, while the set was quickly changed. Ro was beginning to wonder if they used holograms for half of their set pieces as the speed at which they were removed or rearranged was simply amazing. Zee, however, assured her that they weren't. While holograph technology was available on the mass market, it wasn't refined to be believably realistic, as his hologram was. If the items on the stage looked convincingly real, then they certainly wouldn't be holographs.

The next scene took place in Morgan's dungeon, but all of her cauldrons and spell books had vanished. Everyone's attention was fixed on the one object in the room, Camille. She sat facing the wall of the set, staring off into space. Very noticeably, her hair had been let down and she was wearing a new black velvet dress. The door to the dungeon slowly creaked open, and to everyone's relief, the knight stepped through.

"Camille!" he cried, hurrying down a small flight of steps. His metal armor clanked noisily as he walked, and immediately brought Camille out of her daze.

"NO!" She cried, standing up so quickly she turned the chair she'd been sitting in over. "You must leave before she finds you here!" she cried, dramatically.

"Too late," a sinister voice sneered behind him. The knight quickly turned around to find that Morgan had followed him into the room. No one in the audience even had noticed her following, except for Zee, who revealed that she'd actually came out of a secret panel in the wall of the room rather than coming through the stage door.

"Release her or I swear I will buy her freedom with your blood!" he commanded Morgan, protectively drawing Camille behind him as he drew his sword. Despite his threatening gesture, however, Morgan brushed his treat off with more laughter.

It was his pride that caused him to rush forward to smite her, for mocking him. "You fool!" she cried, brushing her hand quickly to the side.

Paralleling her gesture, the knight's sword was ripped out of his hand, and he was swept off to the side of the stage.

"Hidden wire," Zee informed Ro.

A bit shaken, the knight pulled himself off of the ground and reached for his sword again.

"Stop!" Morgan commanded him holding her hand up. "Don't move," she warned. The knight looked daringly, and remained where he was for a second, but then ignored her and dove for his sword. He picked it up while rolling over it, then was on his feet again. He didn't charge at her again though, as he could see from the wild, cocky expression on her face, she would be ready for him if he did.

"Drop your sword," Morgan said simply.

He didn't drop his sword, as he was hesitant to give up his only means of defense, but lowered his sword point to the ground. "Do you doubt my power?" Morgan asked, almost sounding insulted. "Clearly you must, if you think that you can defeat me with such a simple crude human weapon."

"Your words are sharp, but I assure you my sword is sharper," the knight retorted, thinking that she was just flaunting her overconfidence.

"Maybe so. But then how shall we prove this? Oh, I know..." her eyes fixed on Camille. "Camille," she said coldly.

"No, please no," Camille began crying. Her tears caught the knight's attention. Risking his life was one thing, but this was much more serious. Camille's life was on the line as well.

"You have no choice dear, remember?"

"What's gong on!" the knight demanded. Judging by how Morgan was speaking to Camille so plainly, he could tell something was wrong. Morgan's confidence was firmly rooted. Whatever it was, she wasn't bluffing.

"Now, why don't you see just how sharp his sword is—by running it straight through your heart?"

A startling change came over Camille instantly. She stopped crying and her face went blank. Her movements became forced and stiff as she walked towards the knight and reached out to take his sword from him. Her gold bracelet glistening in the light so the audience could clearly see it.

He knew that this wasn't just an act based on the strength he was having to use a lot of effort to keep the sword from her. She had a firm grip on the handle of his sword and was in a tug of war to take it from him. "What have you done to her?" he cried, horrified. "Camille, stop this nonsense!" he pleaded, as he struggled to keep his sword away from her.

"TAKE IT FROM HIM!" Morgan shouted, happily watching the struggle. With her words, Camille completely threw the knight off, claiming his sword for her own. She then began to fumble with the sword, trying to line it up with her heart. It was a difficult task as the sword was longer than her arms and she couldn't hold onto the hilt yet satisfy the technicality of running it _straight_ through her heart.

Everyone in the audience was on their seats. Just what kind of show was this? The villain wasn't supposed to be stronger than the hero. What was going on?

As Camille fumbled with the sword the knight picked himself up from the ground again, and threw himself on her to reclaim his sword from her and save her from herself. "This is taking too long," Morgan sighed, tired of watching the knight and Camille struggle for control over the sword again, regardless of the fact that the audience was completely pumped with adrenaline and was far from bored with the struggle.

Morgan lifted her hand, and the sword was taken away from both Camille and the knight. "It's much faster to just do things yourself..." she cried malevolently.

With her words, Camille was suspended in the air with her arms holding her neck.. It was as if she was being hung by an invisible rope.

"STOP! Let her go!" the knight pleaded, but Morgan only tightened her fist, signaling for Camille to further her acting.

"Let her go!" the knight begged, but Morgan was clearly enjoying the knight's torment at watching his loved one in pain.

"She's mine!" she seethed, tightening her fist again.

It was almost unbearable for the audience to just sit patiently and not try to rush the stage and help the knight out. "Please! I'll do anything!"

"Swear your loyalty to me and I'll spare her life!" Morgan replied.

The knight was slightly startled by this request. He'd been willing to offer his life to the sorceress to save Camille's life, but Morgan wasn't asking for his life. Instead she wanted the strange token of his loyalty? Ro even felt puzzled. Was this the sorceress's ultimate plan? She had all sorts of demon minions at her disposal. What use would she need of a knight?

"Don't do it! Camille gasped, but was quickly silenced as Morgan tightened her fist some more.

As the knight hesitated debating the weighty decision, Camille began to scream from an invisible pain. Morgan had switched to different torture method, one that would urge a faster decision from the knight. "On one condition!" the knight hastily shouted, "Camille is not to be hurt!"

"Do you so swear by this contract?" Morgan asked.

Despite Camille's cries for him to just let her die, the knight replied, "I swear it!"

"DONE!" Morgan shouted.

Camille dropped to the ground, and was gasping, yet crying at the same time. The knight ran over to her, but only had a few seconds to console her before the two ogres entered the room and took him by his arms. "What is this?" he demanded.

"Our contract," Morgan replied, casually walking over to Camille. "I have to be sure that you won't break your word," she said, bending over to take the gold bracelet from Camille's arm.

"A mind control device," the knight blurted out, for any simple minded people in the audience who hadn't made the connection yet.

"How clever," Morgan said, clearly sarcastically. "It's to ensure your loyalty," she explained.

"And how do I know that you will not go back on your end of the contract should I succumb to you?" the knight asked, putting up some restraint against the ogres. He was beginning to get the feeling that he was being double-crossed.

"Being a sorceress, if I make a contract, I am bound to keep it or I will lose my magic. Now, do yourself a favor, and don't struggle while I put this on." Apparently it was some underlying rule in the magical world, as there didn't seem to be any other rational for how Morgan could lose her powers if she broke her word.

The ogres held the knights arm out as Morgan switched the bracelet on to him.

Needless to say, Ro was appalled. "How can she be doing this? Isn't the good guy supposed to win?" she asked Zee. However, as he began to answer, she silenced him, so she could absorb every word that was being said on the stage.

"As long as Camille is safe, it does not matter what becomes of me."

The audience was well used to Morgan's evil laughter by now. "You simple, stupid fool. Did you really think that I would hurt my own daughter?"

The knight turned to Camille for an explanation. "What is this rubbish?" he asked. His question made Morgan laugh even more. "You haven't told him?" she cried. "This is indeed precious!"

Camille began sobbing harder. For a stage actress, her tears were very convincing. "Camille?" the knight asked. Her lack of a denial of this accusation made against her told his intuitions that perhaps Morgan was right. "Is it true?" he asked quietly.

Unable to face him, she turned away. So, it was true. His pity turned to anger. "So you tricked me. This was all a lie! You were just using me for your plot! You're nothing but a vile seductress. And I fell for your trap!"

"That's not true! I do love you! I've never been untrue about that!" Camille protested.

"How can I believe you? You lied to me."

"I never lied to you, I just never told you... I just didn't want you to know. Please! I never wanted this to happen! I had nothing to do with this! I don't want to be a sorceress!"

"Nonsense. You had everything to do with this. I couldn't have done any of this without you. The king's strongest knight at my disposal, and it's all because of you," Morgan sneered.

Heart broken and bitter, the knight stood there quietly, the bracelet gleaming in the stage lights. "Now, to make sure you don't get in the way of things again, I'm going to have to lock you away while I'm gone," Morgan said to Camille.

"WHAT!" the knight cried. "You swore that you wouldn't harm her!"

"No, of course she won't be harmed. And to make sure that she stays safely out of the way I'm going to keep her locked up here in the castle to make sure she stays out of harm's way."

"You can't do that!" the knight cried.

"In your contract you said nothing about letting her go free, so, yes, I can."

As the knight began to rush out to attack Morgan with his bare hands, she held her hand up to stop him where he stood. Now that he wore her bracelet she had limitless control over him.

There was a loud clank sound, and then a large metal cage quickly dropped from the ceiling trapping Camille inside. "If you wish me to take good care of him, you'd best stay put and not try anything while we're gone," Morgan warned Camille.

"Where are you going?" Camille asked.

"To Camelot, where else?" Morgan sneered. There was a large cloud of smoke, and Ro thought she was seeing double as when the smoke had cleared Morgan was gone, and Camille was standing in her place. No, that couldn't be right. Camille was still in the cage. What was going on now?

Morgan then made the classic mistake of revealing her evil plan to a character that was seemingly taken care of, "With this disguise, I'll have no problem being welcomed into the city. Especially with one of the king's own knight's escorting me. From there it'll be all too easy to undo the kingdom from inside! "

The knight looked mortified. He'd willingly sacrificed his life for Camille, who he now felt had betrayed his trust, but in his failure to consider the consequences of his action, he'd be more ultimately betraying the kingdom by his decision. "You'll never get away with such a plan! While I failed to stop you, there will be others who will resist!"

"Not if they don't know that they're being deceived by one of their own!"

Realizing that he'd played right into his demise, the knight took one last look at Camille and his bitterness softened. "Camille, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, for it is too late for us both. I only wanted to save you."

With his last words, Morgan seized control over him. "Arise my faithful servant. For every sorceress needs a knight to do her bidding, and your loyalty belongs to me now!" Camille yelled for her to stop, but her mother ignored her, and she was left alone when she and the knight exited the stage. The stage lights gradually began to dim, until only one was left over Camille, and that too went out.

"That can't be the end!" Ro almost shrieked. The fact that the stage was darkened for so long worried her that the performance was over.

"There's still fifteen minutes left," Zee reassured her.

Ro next began wondering if the stage was having a technical problem as it'd been dark and silent for so long. But, the performance soon resumed with the sound of Merlin muttering mathematical equations and incantations. His voice began to bounce all over the room, jumping from one speaker to the next to give the impression that he was moving around.

"Trecoides- Laguna-Ala... KAZAMM!"

With his last words, the stage instantly lit up, and Merlin was standing in the dungeon with Camille. Adding some humor again to the show, the hem of his robe had caught on fire with his space travel, and he was madly stamping the flames out.

"Merlin!" Camille cried. The wizard turned around, almost surprised to see her. "Well, hello," he said casually.

"Please! You have to help! Morgan has Phillip under her control! They're on their way to Camelot!" Camille cried frantically.

"Well then let's hurry and get you out of here so we can stop them," Merlin said, opening the door with his magic wand.

"We'll never catch up with them!"

"Not by foot we won't." Holding Camille's hand, Merlin began chanting the strange language and complicated jargon from earlier, and this time, the audience got to see them disappear from the stage. There was no smoke screen, no trap door, nothing that would suggest any special effects were involved. It was truly like magic.

"How did they do that!" Ro exclaimed.

"I'll explain afterwards," Zee informed her, knowing that if he got into a discussion now she'd silence him when the actors started speaking again.

The lights went out and the scene reopened with… "A wedding?" Ro whispered. The stage was covered with white bows and white fabric hung all over the stage walls.

At the altar, was Camille, and one of the kings? Just off to the side was Phillip. He was still wearing the bracelet, and was mindlessly staring into space.

It was the classic moment when the priest was about to seal the union between the Morgan and the king when Camille and Merlin came rushing in from the side stage door, shouting for the ceremony to cease. "She's a fake!" Camille cried, pointing at Morgan, who was still in disguise. "She's trying to steal the kingdom right in front of your eyes by tricking the king into marrying her!" Camille revealed the Morgan's secret plan. She'd managed to put two and two together, and had figured out her scheme for herself. After all, wasn't the tournament held with the intent on winning her favor for a marriage proposal? However, the fact that the show was lacking in plot overall was overlooked again by the performances of the characters themselves.

That's when Morgan had the audacity to point her finger in return at Camille and declare her the imposter. And with Phillip on her side, the odds seemed in her favor that the court would side with her. Merlin found himself in a surprisingly odd situation, as he'd naturally assumed Camille had been the victim, but what if it was Morgan that Phillip had locked in the cage instead? Had he truly freed the evil witch, mistaking her to be Camille? But, from the lack of devastated emotion at the sight of Camille being wed to another on the knight's face, he was certain he'd not been deceived.

"Deceiver," Merlin cried, and with that, shot a powerful laser blast toward Morgan. It was at this time that Phillip ran forward to attack Merlin, while the room of guests were uprooted from their seats into immediate chaos. Several seemed to be on Morgan's side, while others seemed to trust in the integrity of the powerful wizard. However, it soon became clear which of the two Camille's was fake, as the one dressed in the white wedding gown began firing off spells of her own at her opponents.

In the spectacular ending battle, monsters began pouring in from all over the stage, to scare off all but the main characters. After two minutes of intense fighting, Merlin was at a stand off with Phillip, and almost appeared to be losing-- as shielded by the sorceress's magic, Phillip was near invincible.

Camille watched hesitantly, as a victory against the sorceress would mean the death or injury of her knight, and a defeat would be the end of Camelot, as it would fall under the sorceress's control.

"Give up Morgan! For you cannot win!" Merlin cried excitedly. The fight between Merlin and Phillip was clearly drawing to a close. Morgan was even involving herself in the laser fight. In her careless aims, she even seemed to be throwing shots into her disposable pawn. What did she care if she killed Phillip?

He was already showing signs of weakness that displeased her such as physical exhausting, despite the berserk look in his eyes. She didn't care that she was demanding more of him than he was physically capable of, or that she was draining his energy with no thought that she was going to use him to the point of exhausted death. As Merlin raised his wizard's staff high in the air, as if to signal a large attack was coming, Camille knew she had to do something, fast, as Morgan seemed to be summoning a large attack as well. In their excitement, with Phillip standing between the two dueling wizards, he was in direct fire shot from both of them! She had to do something, or they were both going to kill him!

In a blinding flash the whole stage was lit up. Then as everyone's eyes slowly focused back on the stage, Camille's near-lifeless body slumped forward into the arms of her knight.

"What have I done?" Phillip cried, the gold bracelet falling from his wrist as Camille collapsed to the ground. He had only a moment to think before having to draw his sword and turn around to face Morgan. But, powerless from the fact that their contract had just been broken, she was already, withering away on the floor. Her beauty stripped from her she was nothing but an old hag. Apparently in the white flash, she'd experienced another quick stage mask change up. With Merlin to keep an eye on Morgan, Phillip hurried over to Camille and scooped her into his arms. As she smiled and gently caressed his cheek with her hand, everyone felt a sigh of relief, as she was alive. And with just a simple kiss from her knight, she managed to find her strength again, and stand on her feet.

And with the stage all set up for a wedding, Ro figured the producers and story writers were tired of coming up with set changes, and decided to end the performance with the king forgiving the knight for his treason, and the knight and Camille getting married. Her identity as a sorceress wasn't mentioned again, and Morgan was sentenced to a harsh, but fair punishment.

The price of dinner was ridiculously expensive, but mainly because it was combined with the price for the entertainment that accompanied dinner. And with the check being paid for, and dinner finally being over Zee immediately blurted out the secret behind Camille's and Merlin's mystical disappearance from what seemed like an eternity ago. "Mirrors."

"Mirrors?" Ro questioned him. The topic seemed completely out of place.

"The reason the time transition was so long was that the actors were actually having to move to a similar set behind or above the stage. And with two concave mirrors, and an incandescent focusing light source, their image was reflected onto the stage so that it looked real, but wasn't really them. Then, when they disappeared, they just changed one of the mirrors so that it no longer reflected properly.

"But it looked real! Not like a reflection!"

"So did you enjoy it then?" Zee asked, standing up from the table to pull her chair out for her. He knew from experience that it wasn't worth the bother to really go into depth about the holographic trick.

"Yeah, I think I liked it. But that laser show at the end actually made me a little uncomfortable. With all of those bright lights flashing around, it reminded me too much of when Bennet's chasing us and is firing at us like he's trying to get the high score in some skeet shooting vid game," Ro said, as Zee helped her put her jacket on by holding it out while she slipped her arms into it.

"Though I do admit, I think those experiences would make me overqualified to play the part of Camille," Ro continued talking as they made their way out into the casino again. Continuing to entertain her own thoughts of starring in a Las Vegas production, they began walking to the front entrance of the casino. "It'd actually be kind of fun to be a fair maiden, being rescued by a knight! Heck, I'd put up with all of the flashing lights if I got to be saved by some handsome knight in shining armor!" Ro continued to fantasize about the romantic life of an Arthurian maiden. She was actually several steps ahead of Zee before she even realized that he'd slowed his pace, and had stopped walking entirely.

"Why do you say these things, Ro?" he wondered, watching her blind hair lightly bounce as she walked ahead of him. His hand reached to his chest, where he felt the solidity of his titanium chest, pressing back against his touch with equal force. Don't you already have a knight in shining armor? Why fantasize when you already have that life before you? And why had he deliberately slowed his walking? This was not the time to be mimicking the human behavior or dejection or attention seeking.

"Something wrong?" she asked carefully, fervently looking around any sign of federal agents, once she'd realized he'd slowed down and wasn't walking beside her anymore.

"No," Zee quickly started walking again. "I was just thinking about the conference. It's in two days, you know."

"You think we're moving too slow?"

He didn't want to tell her that he hoped to check every single hotel tomorrow, as what if Dr. Anderson didn't have a reservation and was just going to try and get a hotel the day before? What if he decided to stay at a hotel they'd already checked? He could try and hit up all the hotels while Ro was asleep, except that he she didn't like it when she was left alone, and well, he didn't like to leave her alone either. Her safety was his responsibility. He was her provider, her caretaker. If anything happened to her, it was his duty to amend the matter…or to give his life trying.

His delayed silence let her know that he did. "You know, if there really is a hover rail that travels up and down the strip, we might find tomorrow that we can travel faster if we're not walking from place to place," Ro added optimistically.

"But there would still be a lot of walking involved, and standing."

"Then I guess we should head back to the hotel now so we can be sure to get some rest for tomorrow then."

"We." Why did she include him in some parts of her human life, but exclude him in others? If she included him in activities such as resting, that he didn't' necessarily require, then why not in others? "Ro, whether you're a maiden or a sorceress, I'd be your knight…" Her life was in his hands. Dr. Anderson was a secondary goal. All that mattered was that she was taken care of.

"I'll call a taxi," he offered.


	6. Chapter 6

"Bennet, Er, Sir! I think they might be onto us. I just received a delayed cred transaction from a cab company!" Unlike the team waiting inside of Zeta and Ro's room, there was no problem with shouting out exciting news inside of the NSA van, which was parked on the side of a side street. Still, he'd have to be careful with his response as if Ro and Zeta approached the room, it wouldn't do well to hear voices coming from inside of it where he was waiting for them with a small team.

So they were onto the fact that they were waiting for them at their car, and were using an alternative mode of transportation. But they would only be able to go so far on a taxi. They most likely wouldn't try to leave the state in a taxi, but they could use it to take them to somewhere where they could find a faster mode of transportation. "Where did they go?" Bennet asked.

"It didn't say. All we have is the total fare amount."

"How much?"

"29 creds, sir."

Bennet tried to estimate cab fare verses the distance Zee and Ro might have traveled in that time, at that rate, but there was too much guesswork to make anything useful out of his speculations. "Campbell, find the standard fare rates for the area. Walker, create a function of possible driving times and locations they might have traveled to using the information Campbell gives you. Remember fare rates increase on the highway. Jones, pull up a map of the area and be prepared to list every location radiating from the Fashion Island Mall from Walker's time table. We need to find out where they went!"

Immediately getting to their assigned tasks, Jones pulled up a map with highlights of all of the possible locations they might have traveled to on 29 creds. Bennet frowned when he heard that the airport was highlighted as a potential location. Even though it was possible that they might have gone the opposite direction, just based on the fact that they'd bypassed their car and had taken a taxi, he was sure they were onto him. And now, they were trying to make their getaway by heading to the airport.

He was confident that they would have been stopped by his team there, but Zeta always managed to somehow slip through his grasp. "How long ago was the transaction?"

"About an hour."

It bothered him that it had taken this long to receive notification of the transaction. His guess then was that the transaction was only processed when the cab returned to the station for refueling and uploaded its transactions into the cab company's main database.

In an hour, they would certainly already have caught a flight. Still, it was enough for him to call West out of the trunk of the car and instruct him and Rush to go check in with the airport team in person. While they'd now confirmed that they hadn't seen Zeta or Ro come through, even with their holoviewers, he felt the need to send in a fresh pair of eyes. Also, giving up on waiting for them at their car was a good excuse not to have to do without one of his other valuable agents for an hour.

"What should we do?" Agent Walker asked for further instructions. "Do you want us head to the airport?"

"Not yet. If they get headed off, and decide to turn around and run the other way, we'll be all that's standing in their way."

Comfortably seated in another taxi, safe with Zee, Ro felt no warnings against dozing off on his shoulder for the ride back. While it'd seemed like she'd been very alert and awake just after the performance, her tiredness that she'd been postponing throughout the day had caught up and overcome her. The ride was over fairly quickly, and she soon felt Zee nudging her to wake up. He didn't dare try to touch her again. Not after what had happened last time.

Her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked, and her eyes began to focus. She hadn't entirely fell asleep, but then she hadn't been awake either. At least this time, she had had no problems waking up. "We're here," Zee informed her.

Sluggishly she slid out of the car. They'd missed the pirate show, but she'd had her fill of entertainment for the night. The night air temperature was moderately warm, with just a slight breeze. "It's a little chilly out here," Ro casually commented, rubbing her hands together to warm them.

While his holographic coat couldn't really insulate heat, or provide Ro much warmth, he still wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close as if he was wrapping his coat around her, and began to lead her inside. She could see the fabric wrapped around her, but she still felt the same. "Come on, let's just hurry inside," she shivered.

"Okay then," Zee replied simply, wondering if he'd offended her with his gesture. But then again, it was silly of him, as while his arm did radiate heat to some extent it wouldn't really be able to keep Ro warm very well.

Lazily, Ro shuffled her feet on her way to the elevator. She was really feeling tired, now and didn't feel like picking them up as she walked. Her head hanging low, she was able to notice how the repeating designs on the carpet added to the mood of the room, but how well it also helped to cover stains up. "Here, I'll get the elevator," Zee offered, pushing the button to call the elevator once they arrived. They had a while to wait, as because the show had ended, several other people had decided to call it a night and return to their rooms and were now using all of the elevators.

Ro shifted her weight from one foot to the other, while waiting somewhat patiently for the elevator. "Why does it have to take so long?"

"There's at least 21 floors, and if it has to make stops on the way down and up, that adds to the time too," Zee explained.

"Let's just look around for the service elevator," Ro suggested quietly, so that the other guests waiting for the elevator wouldn't overhear them. . "You can pretend to be one of the employees, and I'll just be a piece of luggage and no one will ask any questions."

However, after she'd said these words, an elevator finally arrived so there was no need to find the service elevator. "Allow me," Zee said mimicking a bell boy and pushing the button for the fourteenth floor. A couple of other guests entered the elevator with them and pushed the buttons for their floors. They were all lucky to have floors closer to the ground level. While everyone made a big deal about having an office on a higher floor in the business world, to Ro, it seemed more efficient to have an office on the lower floors. The travel time of going up and down would be greatly reduced, and should the elevator stop working for any reason, they would have the least amount of stairs to climb.

Even Rush agreed that there was no sign that Zeta or Ro had been at the airport. "They must be at one of the other locations because they're certainly not here."

"Could they already have left?"

"Not likely. All the flights leaving were full, and there were no cancellations. If they did, then they'd have had to have taken someone else's seat, and no one's filed a complaint yet for having their seat taken away."

"So they could still be here."

"Hey, you said it. not me."

"Let me know if anything else turns up. For now, stay where you are."

It wasn't Rush that had the next bit of news, but Agent Campbell, back at the van. They had another cred card purchase, but it wasn't for any airplane tickets. "A Tournament of Kings?" Bennet repeated, slightly surprised.

"It's a dinner and a show deal at one of the hotels, right near the airport."

"Get in contact with their security force and see if you can get a camera on them inside of the hotel."

"Already did."

Wow, his agents were finally catching onto the program. "And?"

"They've already left, in another cab."

"Anyway we can find out which way they went?"

"No need!" Bennet heard Agent's Walker's voice interrupt. "They're coming this way!"

"Places everyone!" Bennet ordered.

With the given information that they'd taken a taxi, the street team spotted them immediately. They were heading right back to the hotel room, and right into their trap.

There weren't too many places to hide , but in their two bed hotel room, Bennet had managed to find places for three of his agents and himself to hid behind. One agent was hiding in the bathroom, standing with his legs straddled on the tub, behind the pulled back shower curtain. Pulling the curtain all the way back would have provided more cover, but would also have been a clear giveaway that the room was not as the house maids had left it. Another agent, remained hidden in the closet with the mirrored doors slid shut while Bennet himself remained crouched behind the large entertainment dresser. With everyone in their places, the agent hiding under the bed, reached out from under it to turn off the small lamp on the nightstand between the two beds. The room was dark, and now was the time for them to patiently wait for Zeta and Ro to enter the room.

The elevator finally stopped on the fourteenth floor. Ro was already considering just throwing herself onto the bed and falling asleep instantly. She was a little rejuvenated by the thought that they were finally done walking around for the night, but not much. "What room are we in again?" Ro asked, as she began to feel her pockets for the key card to their room.

"1478." The directions mounted on the wall indicated that they should make a right, to get to the right tower, and then from there they'd have further refined instructions.

Zee matched Ro's slow pace as they walked to their room. He always felt a little strange when they were walking rather than running. "This it?" Ro asked, once they got to the door.

Everyone in the room held their breath as the footsteps coming down the hall cam to a stop right in front of their door. While Ro's voice was indiscernible, it was clear that a young female was speaking. And from the other person's response, they could tell the other person was a male. It was them.

Having already turned on his EMP inhibitor, he had no need to worry about making a sound by turning it on now. It was ready, and he was ready. He was so close to success. Clearly if they were coming back to the hotel, undisguised, they must be oblivious to their presence. They'd open the door, turn on the light, and walk into the room. And then, even before the door closed, they'd have him. The instant he entered the room, at least one of his agents would be able to pin their inhibitors on him.

Tired, and anxious to go to sleep, Ro inserted the keycard into the lock.


	7. Chapter 7

"Pop!"

As Ro pulled her card out of the lock, the three small lights on the lock lit up. Red. Yellow. Green. Ro turned the handle on the door, but the door was still locked.

"You sure this is the right room?" she questioned Zee.

He quizzically lifted his eyebrow. Was she really doubting him? When was he ever wrong in regards to remembering something like this? "Try it again," he suggested.

Ro inserted the card into the lock again and pulled the card out slowly. The lights circled again, but the door still wouldn't open when she tried again. A little frustrated and determined to prove her point, Ro tried the card several times with no luck. "You want to try?" she finally forfeited the card over to Zee.

While he was satisfied that he'd watched Ro try all of the possible solutions, there was always a change that maybe he would have the magic touch and the door would unlock for him where it wouldn't unlock for Ro. After failing to open the door for himself, he took the card and inserted it into the door next to theirs. The red light lit up. No, they'd had the right door the first time. "You think maybe they cancelled our room reservation?" Ro asked.

"Not likely."

"Then maybe they gave us the wrong card?"

"The cards are magnetically programmed. Did you have the card near any large magnets?"

"Not unless you count." Ro teased him. "Maybe the battery in the door is dead?"

"Then there wouldn't be any lights on at all." Zee thought about the situation for a moment, then the answer came to him. "Ro, when you inserted the card into the lock, did you feel anything?"

"What?"

"There was a small pop sound, did you feel anything like a static shock when you inserted the card?"

"Not that I remember."

"I think the lock is fried."

"Oh, so you're saying this is all my fault now!"

"Either way, we'll have to let the front desk know so they can reprogram the lock," Zee said, taking the card from her and turning from the door.

"You can't just patch us in?" Ro asked, tugging on his arm.

"Not without forcing the lock open, or without being too suspicious. Don't worry, I'm sure it won't take long. We'll just let the front desk know and they'll get maintenance to fix the door right away."

"See if they'll give us some kind of a refund for the inconvenience at least." They turned to head back to the elevators.

Everyone in the room flinched when the handle to the door shook, but the door didn't open. What was going on? Bennet was grateful that his agents were still in their positions and that they hadn't given themselves away at the false alarm, but he was also furiously speculating on which agent had foolishly dead bolted the door.

"You sure this is the right room?" Ro's faint voice was heard through the door. Only the agent in the closet could understand what she was saying. The thought crossed his mind as well that one of them might stupidly have locked the door from the inside, but he was unable to see if this was the case.

The door handle shook several times as Ro tried to open the locked door. Something was wrong. As tempted as he was to peek and see if the door was indeed locked he knew that Bennet would be upset with him if he did.

"Sir! They're leaving!" the agent watching the security camera informed him. "They're heading back toward the elevators."

"They're onto us. Move out, follow them!" Bennet ordered his men. There was no need to be silent now. They had to hurry and get to them before they reached the elevator.

The agents scrambled out from their hiding places and ran to embrace the door. The door was locked from the inside as well. "It's locked sir!"

"Move out of the way!" Bennet said, hurrying to the door. Strangely, from what he could feel, the door was unlocked. Against his better judgment he ordered for the lights to be turned on. With the lights turned on he could clearly see that the door was unlocked at both locks. Then why wouldn't it open?

He tried the handle several times, but the door wouldn't open. "He set us up!" Bennet cried. "Security team! Turn off the elevators! Don't let them leave the floor! Send reinforcements up!" He turned to the agent on his left. "Get this door open!"

"Why do the elevators take so long?" Ro complained after only waiting for three minutes. All of the down arrows were lit up, as Ro had impatiently pushed them all thinking that it would make the elevators come faster. Strangely, there was no one else waiting to go down or up with them.

After another minute, Zee began wondering what was taking so long himself. He listened, but the elevator shafts were strangely silent. Shouldn't he at least be able to hear them coming up or down from the other floors. "Here, come with me," Zee took Ro's hand.

He led her down the hall and down a small corridor. "Zee, I really don't feel like taking the stairs," Ro began protesting, but cheered up when she saw that he'd actually led her to the service elevator.

"I was thinking we would be validated in taking it this time as our room is locked and the regular elevators are taking longer than usual," he explained, pushing the button to call the elevator.

It arrived within a few seconds, empty, and Ro and Zee promptly got in.

"What?" Bennet squeezed his receiver tighter. "They're taking the service elevator?" He was quiet at first s the agent began murmuring his excuses, but didn't let them deter his anger. "I told you to turn off the elevators!"

While the agents with Bennet couldn't hear what the agent on the other end was saying, from what Bennet was saying they could figure it out for themselves. "I don't care if it was on another grid system. It's a part of your job to find that stuff out!...Turn them off now then!... What do you mean it's too late?... Keep an eye on all the exits. As soon as we get this door open, we'll be coming down! Have the hotel security force keep an eye out for them!"

The service elevator was much faster than the regular elevators. It speedily took them down to the ground floor. Zee carefully looked around before exiting the elevator. He was surprised that Ro hadn't suggested the idea already, but what if their door wasn't locked by accident? And it might have been more than just coincidence that the elevators were running slowly. Perhaps she really was too tired to care anymore? He couldn't allow himself that same luxury. Still, if it was a trap for them. Why hadn't they been caught yet? Sensing that the area was secure he led her out. "I imagine that it's not going to take a long time to get the door fixed, but just in case there's a lounge over there you can wait for me at."

"Sure, whatever," Ro yawned.

Apparently, she really was tired if she wasn't going to put up a fuss about him leaving her. They walked over to the lounge and Ro sat down in one of the deep red velvet sofa chairs. "Want me to get you something to drink?" he asked.

"Root beer-cherry-cola," she mumbled.

"I'll see if they have it," he offered.

He came back shortly. "Sorry," he apologized, handing her a tall smoothie glass. Strangely they'd been to restaurants that willingly mixed the sodas for them, but at this cocktail bar—which he would have thought would specialize in mixing drinks—they bar tender had discouraged the idea. "It's a virgin strawberry daiquiri," he explained, handing her the drink.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," he said, leaving her with her drink.

He stole one last glance over his shoulder at her then left. For being so short, her head was almost completely concealed under the high back of the chair. She seemed to be safely out of sight for the most part. He then hurried to the front desk.

Ro slowly sipped her drink. It was pretty good, and was actually better than getting a soda drink that would pump her up on sugar and caffeine. He'd only been gone for a minute, but already she was missing him. It was dangerous for her to be feeling this way. Forming connections with people only would leave her more vulnerable to be hurt when those people left. Zee was no exception. One day she was going to be separated from him. While it might not be caused by the feds finding him, one day he was going to find his freedom and would then leave her. What if she didn't find her family by then? Would he still want to run with her?

Even if she did find them. Would things ever feel right without him?

But wasn't that what life is about? Finding and losing people? She was deep in thought, when she was interrupted by someone coming up behind her, "Excuse me, ma'am..."

Ro turned around casually, although her nerves were frantic. It was a security guard. She was caught! Ro eyed the woman. She was rather large. She would be too much for her to take on in a struggle. She'd have to dive around her and run for it. She was feeling itchy in her seat, and was ready to run when the security guard asked her "I hate to ask, but you look a little young. Can I see your ID?"

Ro sighed, relieved, but not by much. The guard then made an apologetic, but nervous comment about how it was her job responsibility to ensure that underage minors weren't being given alcoholic beverages.

Ro chuckled, her heart still racing slightly. "If that's all it is, then you don't have to worry because this is non-alcoholic."

As soon as the diarrhea had come out of her mouth, Ro realized she was in trouble. She'd just confirmed that she was underage, by admitting that her drink was non-alcoholic. The guard was not to let her go so easily, however. She was more confident now, and her voice grew harsher, "If you're going to be drinking that in the lounge, I'm going to need to see some ID. If not, you're going to have to take it up to your room to finish it."

"Heh, heh..." Ro laughed nervously, getting up from her chair. It was an opportune moment to pretend to look for her ID, while getting in a good position to make a break for it.

She began to turn out her pockets as if she was looking for her ID, even though she knew they were empty. She'd just bought these clothes. The only thing she was going to find in them would possibly be a little piece of paper saying whom they'd been inspected by for quality control. "Funny thing that you mention taking this up to my room, because that's the reason I'm stuck here. We were having some trouble getting into our room because the door lock is broken so my boyfriend went to go see if he could get it fixed at the front desk while I waited here for him, and apparently he has my ID with him.

"I'm sorry to hear that but because the bar sells alcohol if you're going to be here you need to show me some form of photo ID."

"I already have my drink, and he's going to be back in a few minutes so, will it be fine if I just wait here for him?" Ro asked simply. She really couldn't figure out what was this woman's problem was. If they really were adamant on not selling alcohol to minors, they'd ask for her ID when she tried to get a drink, and they'd refuse here then.

The guard was growing short with her. "I'm sorry, but we can't have the appearance that teenagers are drinking."

Great, she'd gone from being close to 21, to being a minor, and now to just being a teenager. "It's only for a few minutes," Ro tried to convince the guard to leave her alone. "There's no one else here, and my boyfriend will be back shortly with my ID..."

"Either you show me an ID now, or you'll have to leave," the guard said shortly.

She wasn't going to wait for the guard to become more upset with her, and she walked stiffly past her muttering something about writing a complaint to the hotel manager about the poor service. The guard must have heard her because she had a snide comment of her own to add, "There's an arcade in the back of the hotel. No IDs required there," she laughed.

Ro turned her nose up and hurried off. She figured she'd best meet Zee at the front desk. An ID, honestly. What a joke. As far as the government was concerned she didn't merit having any form of legal identification. Heck, she was surprised that the guard wasn't there to collect her. If Zee was with her and if she was in the mood to provoke the guard she might have commented that the guard had probably seen her face a dozen times before and that it was her problem for not recognizing her. She imagined that there probably was a pin up of her and Zee somewhere in the security files of the hotel somewhere. Then again, if Zee had been with her, he would have just provided the guard with a holographic ID of her, and there wouldn't be any need to deal with the guard further.

As Ro started heading toward the front desk she passed by the regular guest elevators. The angered comments of the frustrated people caught her attention. "What do you mean they turned off the elevators? When will they be coming back on? Are we supposed to wait until they turn then back on, or are the opening up the stair access?..."

The elevators were turned off? Something was wrong indeed. Such a thing was unheard of. She woke up from her tiredness as adrenaline began to rush through her body. Zee? What if he's in trouble? As she scanned the area, she became aware of the foreboding presence of all of the security guards. She needed to go somewhere she could easily blend in.

While the guard had been mocking her, the arcade would be filled with several other young adults. It would be an easier place for her to get lost and hide in. But what about Zee? He was expecting her to wait for him at the lounge. What would happen if he came back and she wasn't there?

She was teasing the idea of looking for him at the front desk regardless, when she noticed she'd caught the attention of another security guard. She had to become invisible, and fast. She turned around and began to hurry toward the back of the hotel where the arcade supposedly was. She could just as easily be walking into a prepared trap there, but it was probably a little safer than trying to find Zee near the front desk. If Bennet were here, that would be one area he would definitely be patrolling. She felt sick as she hurried away from the main area of the casino.

She didn't know what to do. She had a strong desire to find Zee and let him know that they had to leave quickly, but then her other instinct told her to hide herself because Zee would be fine. He was smart, and if there was something wrong, he would be able to sense it and work around it. Still, while he could easily get himself out of a trap, he would undoubtedly be worried about her. What if he came looking for her back at the lounge and she wasn't there? What if he got caught because he was too busy looking for her to save himself?

She stopped walking, and was about to turn around to go find him immediately when she remembered the security guards. She could still see the guard who'd reprimanded her for being in the lounge. She was animatedly speaking with another guard. She couldn't go back now--they were looking for her.


	8. Chapter 8

"Wow, Ro's really doing a good job at not being seen," Zee thought as he made his way back to the lounge. He couldn't see any part of her head above the seat cushion at all. He'd spent very little time waiting in line to speak with someone. At the counter he'd simply explained the situation and had then be assured that they'd send someone right up to their room, and that he could go upstairs to wait for them. Ro was certainly going to be pleased with their quick response. However, to his dismay he soon learned that the reason Ro couldn't be seen at all was because she wasn't there.

Any other person might have first assumed that she'd gotten up to go to the restroom or had wandered off nearby, but he knew better than to prioritize anything but the worst, first. Also, he hadn't been gone for that long. Still, he looked around quickly to see if she was only lingering somewhere close by. Unfortunately, the only people who seemed to be lingering were two security guards. He began to fear the worst. Things didn't get better when one of them pointed in his direction and they began to make their way over to him.

"Excuse me, sir?" one of the security guards asked the bar tender.

"Yes?" he replied, looking up from the glass he was wiping clean.

"We're looking for the tall dark haired gentleman that was just over here. Is he around?"

"Said he was looking for someone himself."

"Blondie..." the male security guard made a reference to Ro.

"Yes, I do believe he said she had blonde hair," the bar tender confirmed.

"Which way did he go?" the woman asked him quickly.

"I suggested he try to find her in the lobby, as that's where he told her he was going to be when he had her wait here for him."

"The front desk, let's go," the woman said, pulling her partner along behind her. Curiously, the bartender watched them hurry off towards the front of the hotel.

The kitchen door opened and the real bartender hurried out, carrying the requested special wine, his patron had ordered. "Your Château Mouton Rothschild Pauillac, sir. 2017, a good year, I might add."

Zee promptly paid the bartender for the entire bottle. Upon Zee's request, the bartender poured the wine into a crystal glass, as Zee sat on the bar stool. "So what happened to that woman who was here just a while ago? That's half of the reason I stopped by ," Zee smirked, playing the bartender for information.

The bartender laughed nervously. It would be a shame to tell this gentleman that the girl already had a boyfriend, and that she was probably underage. He looked to be well established in his mid forties, a woman hunter, most likely. Her certainly had the money for it. It almost sickened him to think that there were people as old as him that would lust after some as young as she. Still, he had asked, so he should tell him. "Security came by and tried to pick her up for having a beverage in the lounge here without an ID," he explained. "She went off in that direction," he pointed toward the back of the casino.

"No ID? Who comes to Vegas without an ID?" Zee laughed the matter off. "Too young for Vegas and thus too young for me," he hinted.

The bartender began to wonder. Maybe he'd misjudged this gentleman, and he wasn't a womanizer after all. The bartender opened up a little, feeling more comfortable with the gentleman now. "Thought it was pretty funny—the woman that carded her suggested that she go to the arcade, because they don't require IDs there," he laughed.

Zee chuckled at the joke, as he swirled his wine around his glass. He stiffly got up from the stool, paying the bar tender a couple more creds as a tip for his service, or rather his help. "Well thank you for the wine," he said, lifting his glass to the bartender. He left the bottle there, but carried the glass off with him. The bartender began having second thoughts, wondering if he'd offended this man, but as he was handsomely tipped, maybe this was just the strange nature of wealthy people?

Not having even taking a drink of the fine wine, Zee deposited his full glass on the platter of one of the scantily clad women going around offering drinks to the slot players. What a shameless thing to do—offering free alcoholic beverages to people so they become drunk and lose good judgment and thus spend more money gambling.

As soon as the bar tender was out of sight, and without his drink to slosh around he began hurrying toward the arcade. He might have suspected that Ro had just gone to meet him at the front desk if he hadn't just come from there, and if the security guards hadn't been inquiring about him as well. Ro had been right. This whole thing had been a set up. The fact that security was looking for them proved it. Now, he just had to find Ro and make sure she was alright. They'd find a way out of the city later. He kept a close eye out for any agents as he hurried. There were cameras everywhere. If anything, they probably already knew about his current disguise as a middle-aged man. He didn't think they had Ro yet though. The guard's subtle anxiousness when he'd said "Blondie" and how his eyes had darted around the room once more at the mention of her name, let Zee know that they were still looking for her. Hopefully though, the guard wouldn't take her own suggestion and look for Ro at the arcade.

Regardless, though. It would still be a smart place for Ro to hide in. He might even have a problem finding her in there if she didn't know that he was looking for her.

"He's not at the front desk, but we know that he hasn't left the hotel yet, Bennet."

"And what about Rowen?

"The funny thing about that, is that hotel security did find her, but they didn't take her in."

"And why is that?" Bennet asked coldly.

"The woman we spoke with said that she'd looked 20, not 17, and that not having an ID wasn't an offense worth arresting her for."

"Didn't she get the memo?"

"She did, shortly, after reporting the confrontation, but by then she'd already disappeared. We're checking the video footage now to see which way she went."

And the synthoid," Bennet paused, already expecting to hear bad news.

"He wasn't with the girl. We're looking for him on the tapes now. But it's difficult. There's so much footage to go through from all of the different cameras that might have caught him." He was right.

Bennet turned to the agent at the door, "How much longer until you get that door open?" he asked.

"The hotel staff said that they're sending someone from maintenance up, but that it's difficult since they have to get the elevators back online first."

"Break the door. We don't have time to wait."

"It's aluminum, I don't think..."

"I don't want excuses! I want results! Fire on it if you have to!"

The agent waited for the doorway to be clear before she would fire her phaser at the lock. "Who's available?" Bennet turned to the agent on his communicator.

"Agents Rush and West are awaiting orders at the airport. I could call in someone from the street team."

"Tell Rush and West to get here as soon as possible."

"Yes sir."

With the door cleared, the agent fired on the lock a Bennet had instructed. However, when inspecting the door lock, she'd not managed to blow a hole through the door, but had successfully infused the lock and handle together with the metal frame around the door. "Uh... someone should tell the mechanic to bring a laser cutter up with him, because he's going to have to cut the lock out of the door as it's completely melted now."

Bennet might have been angry, if it hadn't been his idea to begin with. "Walker," he turned his communicator on again, "have street B team move in as well. We're going to be here a while longer." With so many things going wrong, he was more than certain that the synthoid had planned it this way.

The arcade was clearly marked. Zee had an easy time finding it, and apparently so had the security guards. Drats. He stopped walking, and ducked behind a large stone pillar. They were on the ground floor of the arcade, receiving orders on their two way radios. "Ro!" he had to find her before they did.

When he stepped out from behind the pillar he was much shorter and more youthful. On the top floor of the arcade, there weren't many vid games, but mostly prize winning games. He wouldn't find Ro among these, unless she had managed to bury herself inside of a large pile of stuffed animals, or had crawled underneath one of the counters while the attendant wasn't looking. He'd do best to move down another level where there were more vid games, and unfortunately where the guards were.

He surreptitiously made his way through the crowd. The arcade was bustling with young children, their parents, and was more than abundant with young adults Ro's age. He had to hurry to find Ro before they, did, but also because if she wasn't in the arcade, it meant she was even in more danger as he had no other clue where she might be and she'd be more at risk from being caught. It would be difficult to hurry yet still do a thorough search. The guards were walking around on the right side of the arcade, which allowed him to search the left.

He didn't think it was possible, but he was beginning to panic. He didn't have any increase surge of power in his circuitry, or any failure of movement, but there was a small alarm going off warning him that time was running out. He was going to lose something of greatly value to him if he didn't find it fast. He would lose Ro.

Finally ,there she was! Playing some first person shooter game...where the targets were, oh no, robots. Great, she was mad at him. The game unit was stashed away in the back less populated area of the arcade. Most likely, because of its enormous size, and because of it's lack of popularity.

Through the window in the back of the unit, he could see that Ro was playing the game by herself. The game unit itself was very long in length as Ro was shooting real plastic pellets at the targets on the vid screen. Zee surmised the lack of modern technology was what made the game less appealing. There was a token dispenser right behind him, but he didn't need to get any. Ro had several tokens lined up on the rim of the machine unit, signaling that she was reserving this game for as many tokens as she had lined up. Zee picked up two of the tokens, then pulled the curtain back and entered the game unit on the other side.

He quickly inserted the two coins, then picked up the protective helmet with face mask and put it on. Ro made a small note of the stranger joining her game, but didn't initiate any conversation. It wasn't as if she could control both sides of the game, after all.

Because of his odd shaped head, the helmet didn't fit as snugly as it should, but he didn't have to worry about needing face protection. He then picked up the gun and began shooting at the targets with her.

Rather than enjoying having someone to play with, Ro was irritated. The second player was an excellent marksman, and wasn't bothering to leave any target on the screen for her to shoot at.

"You'll shoot better if you pull the face mask above your eyes," he casually noted, not losing his concentration on the game. Ro looked over and glared at him. What nerve this guy had to join HER game, then try to tell her how to play it! Even more strange, was how his helmet was falling in his face even worse than hers was!

"And are you so good that you don't need to see at all?" she retorted.

Zee placed his character behind a stack of boxes for cover, then lowered his weapon. He turned to Ro, and pulled the face visor up. Ro was surprised, but more confused. Maybe she wasn't remembering correctly, but she was sure that this wasn't the same person she saw putting the helmet on to begin with...

"You!" she seethed, and fired her gun at Zee's forehead. The spring snapped, and a tiny pellet shot out, then bounced off Zee's forehead. As foolish as it might have been if it really hadn't been Zee, it certainly did feel gratifying.

His nose wrinkled, but he didn't appear to take any particular notice that she'd shot him with a mild plastic pellet. "That was for leaving me!" She cursed him, then began to take her aggression out on the game again. Without Zee taking all of the hits, her score began skyrocketing. "Less than a minute after you left, security came by and tried to pick me up!"

Zee resumed game play, but only to make sure that his character didn't time out. "For not having an ID, I know. That's how I knew to come here. But that's not the worst of it. Security's here. They're in the arcade right now. They're looking for you, or maybe even us."

"No surprise there." She was clearly still bitter about having been left alone.

"How many tokens do you have left?" Zee asked. He could see that she had a small coin bucket, but he couldn't really tell how many coins she had left in it.

"Not enough to keep this up all night. And if you recognized me with this helmet on, I'm sure they will too." Ro's anger was no longer helping her accuracy but hindering it. "...It wasn't supposed to be like this."

Her voice was soft again, and she almost seemed penitent. "It really is a cruel irony, you know," he tried to sound optimistic. "Most people spend money trying to look younger, not older." The sound of another plastic pellet ricocheting off of his forehead let him know that Ro was not amused.

"You're on the list Zee," she glared at him. She wasn't going to let him use his typical rebuttal of, "it was in his robotic nature to be insensitive" this time.

"As long as I'm at the top," he smiled.

"No, Zee, 'the list' is not somewhere you want to be."

"So, how does one get off the list?" he began asking, but Ro's attention was elsewhere.

"I'll let you make it up to me later. Right now we've got a problem. Agents are coming this way!"

"Wait, agents?"

"Rush and West."

"What about security?"

"Oh, they're coming this way too."

"That can't be good."

"What do we do?" Ro asked, forgetting about her game.

"Don't stop playing," Zee replied.

"I think us escaping is a little more important than getting our names on the high score list..."

"Of course it is," he agreed with her, but didn't drop his pellet gun. He did however, drop on hand in order to feed his wrist cable into the terminal on the coin collector. After hacking into the system, the coin door released.

"Take all the coins out," he instructed her.

While she might have protested that doing so would be like stealing, they were probably all of her coins to begin with. Also, they were arcade tokens, so it wasn't as if they could get any cash value out of them. She handed Zee her gun and began to empty all of the coins from the arcade unit into her bucket. "Hey Zee," Ro smirked, pointing to pressurized plastic pellet feeding tube that was connected to the guns and to the main storage of plastic BBs.

"I think that will work nicely instead," Zee commented.

"Over there, in the corner," Rush pointed towards a large game that appeared to have people playing it.

"I'll go check it out," West offered.

He approached the game casually. The two players were clearly enjoying their game from their excited shouts. "Excuse me," West said, knocking on the wooden frame of the machine to attract the attention of the gamers inside.

"We've got this game. Come back later," Ro shouted from across the other side, remotely disguising her voice.

Proudly holding out his NSA badge while reaching to pry back the curtain he was stopped by a cold, sinister voice. "FREEZE! Don't move!"

Thinking it was just the game, he ignored the warning and threw back the curtain. That's when the hailstorm of plastic BBs began to pelt him from inside of the game unit. Startled, West tried to run in retreat, but ended up tripping over himself and slipping on the plastic BBs on the floor. "Run!" Zee shouted to Ro.

Diving out from the other side of the unit, Ro made a break for it. Zee dropped the plastic air hose which continued to shoot out BBs uncontrollably until the supply ran out. Jumping over West, he followed Ro into the center of the arcade. After realizing that he wasn't under attack and that the pellets were harmless, West brushed himself off and got up to follow them. "Rush! It's them!" he cried.

"How about now?" Ro asked.

"Now's good," Zee affirmed.

Ro took a small handful of tokens from her cup and tossed the rest in the cup high into the air. "Free tokens!" Ro shouted. Anyone in the arcade who wasn't in the middle of a game was then on the floor, scrounging to collect as many of the tokens as they could. With so many people crawling around on the floor it was impossible for Rush or West to get through quickly. "Come on," Zee motioned to Ro. They were both on their knees like everyone else, crawling around the dirty floor of the arcade, looking for a convenient time to slip off entirely.

"Zee, security!" Ro warned him. While they'd successfully delayed the agents, Ro was correct. Security was still up and about, looking for them on the other side of the mess. At first Zee began to entertain ideas about just breaking through and running for it, but then he got a better idea.

"Over there, the large black box." he advised her.

Ro hadn't noticed the box earlier, because it hadn't been there. The large black box Zee was referring to was some kind of a space fighter game. It loaded the seven players on the ground then rose up twenty feet in the air for a flight simulation experience combined with shooting down space targets. Apparently a game had just finished as it had lowered to the ground again to let off passengers and to take on a new crew.

"Got room for two more?" Zee asked the teen at the door to the game.

"Actually yeah. A couple of people were waiting, but they just suddenly left the line so, yeah, there's room for two more."

"Count us in," Ro said eagerly, thinking that the reason that the people had left was because of the tokens she'd thrown into the air.

The game unit had a large vid screen in the front of the unit with seven chairs lined up in the back. Ro and Zee quickly took the last two seats and put their tokens in the machine. As soon as everyone had put their coins in, the doors shut, and the game unit lifted off of the ground. They were quickly debriefed on their mission which was just a complex way of instructing the game players to shoot anything on the screen that moved. "You up to that?" Ro teased Zee.

"We need to keep the game going," he replied, then added quietly, "Eventually the agents are going to stop looking for us and are going to leave. We need to keep this game going until they do."

Luckily, everyone in the game seemed well experienced so they weren't going to have a problem until the harder levels of each person holding up their end.

"How do you know they didn't see us get in here, and aren't going to give up and leave?" Ro whispered.

"Because I made a phone call on my way over here," Zee confessed. While finding Ro was his first priority, he knew that even if he did locate her that he'd have to have a plan for getting out of here.

"What kind of phone call?"

"Airline reservations, charged to our room."

"Bennet's going to be watching the airport! We can't just fly out of here!"

"We both know that, but assuming that we are going to try to fly out of here, we'd need to be at the airport in less than an hour. Chances are, Bennet's going to call all of his agents back to the airport to look for us on that flight."

"You think he set up our room?"

"It's possible, but it seems unlikely as if it was a set up, he certainly didn't plan things out very well."

"Let's do this then," Ro turned her full attention to the game.


	9. Chapter 9

The game surprisingly lasted only for twenty minutes, but to everyone inside, and waiting in line, it felt like much longer. While Zee was holding up the action pretty well, one of their crew members made the comment that the game was taking longer than he'd initially expected, and asked if it would be possible to end the game any time soon. Realizing that if Bennet was going to recall his agents, he would have done so already, Zee stopped shooting at the targets, and a few minutes later the game ended. Not surprisingly, at the end of the game Zee had the highest score and 99 accuracy.

"Ninety-nine percent?" Ro commented. "Not one hundred? Are you getting rusty?"

"The one percent was the first couple of shots where I was calibrating the scope," he defended Ro's accusation.

"I stand corrected."

They were cautious as they exited the gaming machine, and were relieved to find that Zee was correct. The agents were gone, or at least they were doing a superb job at not being seen.

Once they were cleared of the arcade area, and on their way out of the hotel again, Ro asked, "How do you think they found us? The car?"

Their car was back at the Pairs hotel, yet the agents had still found them here, so while it was a possibility, Zee was certain that some other factor had led them here. "Maybe, but I don't think so. Regardless, you know that we can't return to it now. I hope you didn't have anything of value in it."

"I learned the first time we had to ditch a car, not to leave anything I cared about locked in it," Ro reminded him. She then reflected on something else he'd said, "If you don't think the followed the car, then what's your theory?"

It was a question he was still debating himself. "At first I thought your involvement with security might have led them here, but then how would they have known to come here, to Las Vegas, in the first place?"

"Hmmm..." Ro said sardonically. "Maybe for the same reason we came here?"

She was probably right, Dr. Anderson appearing at the convention had to be a set up. How else would Bennet have made it here so quickly? He had just been waiting around for a lead off to their location, and Ro's citation with security probably did it. "I guess we should work on a plan for getting out of here then."

"Yeah, one that doesn't involve a free ride in the fed's van would be nice," Ro added.

"The convention is in two days, but I suppose we'll out of here before then. But… " He didn't know why, but there was a part of him that was reluctant to give up the hope that their involvement with the feds was merely a coincidence and not just a set up.

Ro interrupted him. "But?" What more could he want?

"We have to check one more hotel."

"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I thought we agreed this was all a setup. So why would you want to get in trouble again?"

"I have to know if he's here."

Ro threw her hands up in the air, "It's like I'm talking to a monkey! Uggh!" Ro sighed, exasperated. "Okay, let's pretend that miraculously, his name is on this hotel's list. Then what? You don't really think that he'll be up in his room do you? You'd be walking right into another trap! Listen to me, Zee. It's a bad idea. It's all a hoax. You'd just be falling into another stupid trap."

He conceded. "Then it's probably best if we get out of here tonight," he quickly recovered his senses. "I imagine we can either catch a bus tonight, or possibly wait around until morning and see if the airport has cleared up, in which case we could take a flight out."

"You're not worried about a road blockade?" Ro asked. "I think it would be best that we wait until morning either way."

"But then that would mean that we would hiding out here all night long."

"And what's the problem with that?"

"I guess I'm a little worried that it might be too much for you. You were pretty tired when we went up to the hotel room."

Even with all of the excitement they'd been through, exhaustion was quickly regaining control over her again. But, she didn't think it would be too much. "I think I'd be okay. It's only for a couple of hours."

It was a risky suggestion, but he decided he'd let Ro make the decision as to whether it was a good idea, or a bad one. "Perhaps we could rent another hotel room?"

At first she was ready to tell him it was an absolutely ridiculous idea, but as she was really tired, her reasoning was affected by her body's need for rest. "Only if it was something low profile. Or something without its own security team. It's just too easy to get spotted on camera, then have to go running ten minutes later."

"Maybe something like a motel?" Zee suggested.

While the name held a bad connotation with Ro, a motel probably wouldn't have much security and would indeed be a good place to stay at until morning. "Yeah, but where do you suppose we'd find one? I don't think there would be any here as they wouldn't prove to be much of a competitor against the larger hotels."

"We might have to walk a couple of blocks, but I'm sure we can find one," Zee insisted.

By now they'd made it to the outside of the hotel, and were walking along the sidewalk. Checking for traffic, they crossed the street onto the other side of the boulevard. "It think it'd be best if we moved away from the strip," Zee said, turning onto a side street. The number of people around them decreased rapidly as they walked further and further away from the main casinos. The streets were almost as deserted as when they'd first come into Las Vegas.

They had walked more than a few blocks before Zee finally spotted, what he declared to be a motel. Even then it was further than Ro could see, so it meant that they'd still have a even more blocks to walk before she could finally rest. Ro also noted that the further they moved away from the main strip, the shabbier the housing got. This was definitely not the kind of neighborhood she'd want to be walking around in alone at night. Having Zee next to her made her feel safer, but it also reminded her that he was the reason that they had this lifestyle. Still, having once been alone on the streets, without anyone at all, she was grateful if anything, just for his company.

The manager inside of the motel office was a little surprised to have two people walk in requesting a room, without having heard their car pull up, but as it was very late, he might just have been too tired to notice. "We have a room on the third floor," Zee informed Ro once he'd checked out the room. He was about to hand her the card key, But Ro stopped him.

"You might want to hold onto that this time," she warned him. "At least until we go somewhere where the humidity is less."

Even though it looked like there were plenty of rooms on the second, or even first floor, judging by the few number of cars in the parking lot, Ro imagined that the manager had given them a room on the third floor out of spite, for the fact that they'd probably woken him up from his sleep to rent a room this late at night.

The room itself wasn't as disgusting as Ro had imagined it would be, but it still needed some fixing and maintenance work. The most notable problems were when she turned on the faucet, and the shower, the drains began to back up. But it wasn't like she would ever be using both at the same time, or probably even the shower. And there was only one good working hinge on the dresser, but again, she had no use for it as she didn't have anything to put in the dresser. And someone had at least made an attempt to replaster the holes in the wall, so it wasn't a complete dump. However, as the bed looked clean, and the sheets smelled fresh, she had no problem throwing herself onto it and going to sleep.

"You'll keep watch like you always do, right?" Ro tiredly asked. From the way Zee was fixedly staring out of the window, she was sure that he was, but just so that they was no miscommunication between them, she still had asked.

"Of course," Zee confirmed.

"Well, I'll try to get some sleep then."

From the short intervals between Ro's breaths, Zee could tell that she was asleep. She'd been asleep for over an hour now, which was both good in that she didn't appear that she was going to have a restless night's sleep, and in that he imagined if the agents had followed them from the casino, they would already have made their presence known by now.

He gazed out over the top of the high cement wall that surrounded the motel's parking lot. For added security, there was even a laser wire that ran around the perimeter. Nearly a mile ahead, in plain sight, he could see it—the Hilton. It was right across from the convention center. He could imagine what Ro would have told him if he'd told her that that was the hotel he'd wanted to check. She probably would have told him that it was ridiculous, but especially out of the question because it would be swarming with feds.

But that was the beauty of the situation… The Hilton was in the opposite direction of the airport. If any agents were still left in the area, they would be at the other end of the strip, far away from them.

He glanced at Ro, she was still sleeping. He almost feared that she could hear his thoughts while she slept. What would she say if she really knew what he was thinking? How angry would she be if he told her that he really did want to still check it out? Even with so much wagering against him, he just couldn't get it out of his mind. Even trying to prioritize which "thoughts" he processed and continued to think about, somehow the Hilton kept labeling itself as most important. Was he losing track of his own conscious? It seemed like it, if it wasn't for the fact that he enjoyed entertaining ideas that what if Dr. Anderson really were there, and what if he would be able to help them?

He almost felt as he did when Bucky was controlling him with his inductance controller. He didn't know why, but he was walking toward the door, then ever so carefully opening it. He glanced behind him. Ro was still sleeping soundly. Good. The Hilton was less than a mile a way. He could easily be back within the hour, and Ro would never know that he'd left. Without her tagging along he'd move faster, and he could more easily infiltrate the hotel's database, and find what he was looking for. He just had to find out. He'd never be able to think clearly again until he resolved this issue and found closure.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

While it should have caught someone's attention, no one seemed suspicious of the energetic bot that entered the casino, strangely through the front door. The fact that it immediately resumed its position at the front desk didn't send signals of intrusion, but that it was promptly getting back to work—even though there was no reason for it to be accessing the room database when it didn't have a client, or to be using the front door rather than the service door. And why should anyone notice? Robots were generally reliable and didn't need constant supervision. It would take a fairly noticeable malfunction to occur, or for someone to complain before a bot drew any attention to itself.

"Room 674," Zee noted to himself as it would be contradictory for him to speak such information out loud while pretending to be a bot. If he was with Ro, and she'd been looking over his shoulder, he would have read it out loud for her benefit.

But, she wasn't with him, and every second he was away from her, the potential for her to end up in a dangerous situation was growing greater. Even though he was sure that she was still sleeping in her bed, unaware of his absence, nightmarish thoughts of someone breaking into the room without him there concerned him, but more worriedly, the thought that Ro would come looking for him if he wasn't there when she woke up. He couldn't count on her to be sensible and wait in the hotel room for him, expecting him to return. She was just as daring as he was sometimes, and possibly even as much as a risk taker.

In any other instance, he might trust her not to come looking for him, but not this time. With his inkling from earlier, she'd know what was on his mind, and what he was doing right now. He had to hope that she didn't wake up and that she didn't find out, because there would be no sound reason he could give her for his audacity.

Struggling to withhold his anticipation, Zee made his way to the elevators, and then pushed the button for the sixth floor. He changed his appearance in the privacy inside the elevator by himself. This was it. The elevator doors opened on the sixth floor. He turned right, as the rooms guide directed.

The hallway was silent, as it should be. Everyone on the floor was resting quietly. He stopped in front of room 674. Everything was quiet here too. He hesitated. What if he opened the door and it wasn't the person he was looking for? What excuse would he give them? Or what if no one was there? Should he keep looking around? Being a doctor, he imagined Dr. Anderson would retire early to bed, and wouldn't be out this late at night. But… what if he was there when he opened the door? Zee imagined he'd first apologize for the intrusion, then would get right to the point. He wouldn't let this precious time be used unwisely. It painfully reminded him of the small bit of time he'd had with Dr. Selig. He hadn't even gotten to tell him that he was Zeta before Dr. Selig's assistant had pulled him away to the emergency escape pods. And then… He didn't wish to think about it. If he concentrated too hard on the negative things in life, he'd miss out on all of the good things there were left for him.

He reached out to knock on the door first. It would be the polite thing to do, but on a second thought, the element of surprise seemed more important than polite manners. Instead, he reached for the door handle. The cable in his wrist snaked out, and began to decode the lock. The door unlocked, and he was able to turn the handle.

There was only one light turned on in the far corner of the room. It was a reading lamp, which had not been left on accidentally, but was appearing to be providing sufficient light for the man sitting in the chair beneath it to read his book by.

Zee cautiously entered the room. He couldn't tell if the man was still awake, or if he'd fallen asleep reading. The lack of an alarmed response to his intrusion into the room seemed to prove that he was sleeping, but his upright posture and the way his head hasn't rolled off to either side didn't make it seem like he was sleeping. He looked closely at his eyes. It was hard to discern if they were closed or lowered because he was looking at the page. "Dr. Anderson?" Zee finally had the nerve to ask.

"Zeta," the man mumbled, lifting his eyes to meet his. "I've been expecting you."

"You have?" Zee naively replied.

"Of course."

Zee turned around suddenly, as he heard the door to the room right behind him opening. But, it was too late. He was surrounded on both sides, as while he turned to face the agent in the room behind him, he heard the shot come from behind him, from Dr. Anderson…

He was immobilized in the energy force field. So, Ro was right. Dr. Anderson was really an undercover agent. He should have detected that he was wearing cosmetic make-up, and that he really wasn't the person he was looking for. Then, as be tried to further analyze the situation around him, his motor functions shut down and he lost the ability to differentiate who or what was around him. He tried to reach behind him to pull off the spider-like inhibitor, but then another one was thrown. The agents were prepared for him. He couldn't pry the inhibitors off and evade the barrage of retaining cords. There were too many of them. The binary code of his processor began running, "01010010…" It had been spelling the thought that was about to cross his mind before everything shut down. However, it only got as far as "R".

Ro sleepily looked over towards the window. She was about to roll over and go back to sleep when she realized that Zee was not indeed by the window as she'd almost dreamed he had been. Unalarmed, she looked to another corner of the room. No Zee. She rolled over onto her back and sat up slightly. It was hard to focus on anything in the room because of the lack of light, but she was certain that if there was a large man in the room, she'd have recognized the shape, no matter how little light there was. "Zee?" she called out. If he was in the room, she certainly wasn't seeing him. Or was he trying to hide from her?

There was no answer. "Light," she called out. The lights didn't turn on. And why should they? This was a cheap hotel, that didn't feel it was worth installing automatic light sensors. She turned towards the night stand, and began to fumble for the control switch to the lights. She squinted her eyes as the lights turned on, then began to scan the room again. "Zee?" she warily called out.

He wasn't here, and she certainly doubted that he was just in the restroom or something stupid like that. She sat up abruptly, and threw the comforter and sheets off. As much as she would want to believe that he was just going out for ice she knew that he wouldn't be going to get her ice in the middle of the night when she certainly wouldn't have much of a use for it while she was sleeping. Something was wrong. He was gone, but where did he go?

She paced around the room. She stared at the chair by the window, almost hoping that if she blinked, he'd suddenly appear when she opened her eyes again. But no, her problems weren't about to be resolved so easily. She knew better than to expect things to go her way, and for everything to work itself out problem free.

Her gaze drifted to the window. The curtains were somewhat disturbed. Zee had been looking out of the window. She parted the voile curtains and looked out. With the lights on, it was difficult to see out of the window because of the glare. She pressed her face up against the window, but then thought better of it considering that these windows probably hadn't been cleaned in a while. She returned back to the bedside lamp then turned down the light, and returned to the window. She could see much easier outside now. Like a lighthouse, standing bold against a grey sky, was the Hilton.


	11. Chapter 11

Ro muttered under her breath as she hurried towards the Hilton, "I swear I'm going to microwave his processor when I find him…When I get done pounding some sense into his head, it's going to be so flat, they can use it for kitchen foil.

She had been on the streets alone before, but now that she was used to having Zee there to protect her if necessary she certainly did feel a little more vulnerable. However, in the mood she was in, being upset with him for leaving her like this, any thug that tried to mess with her was going to find that he was going to be the one in trouble. "Why would he do this to me?" she was asking herself. He was always telling her how he was concerned for her safety and well being so it seemed odd that he would chose this opportunity to make a hypocrite of himself.

The streets became darker and more potentially threatening as the street lamps thinned out, reducing visibility. She began jogging, then broke out into a straight run. An attacker might think twice before messing with her if she looked more intimidating as she ran through the streets. They'd have to catch her, which would be quite an amazing feat, as she was already watching her back for agents. Anyone else she spotted, was just a secondary concern.

She slowed down and caught her breath as she got closer to the hotel. It wouldn't be wise to attract the attention of anyone from suspiciously approaching the hotel at a sprinting pace. There were no apparent signs that he was here, or that he had been here, but she was sure he was still in the building somewhere. Then again, apparent signs usually indicated trouble, as such signs were broken doors, blast marks, or toppled architectural supports. Looking up at the hotel itself, even though it was pretty late, there were still several rooms that had their lights on. He could possibly be in any one of those rooms, or even in a room without a light on. Or maybe she was wrong, and he really wasn't here at all? Not likely.

She cautiously entered the hotel. There were cameras everywhere. Just her luck. She imagined she'd have maybe six minutes before someone in security recognized her. She walked up to the front desk. A bot readily rolled up to the counter to attend to her. It politely asked, "How may I help you?"

"Yes, I'd like to get the card for my room please."

"What is your reservation code?"

"The reservation is under the name 'Anderson.'"

Ro, almost amused, watched the bot attempt to processor her request. In a way, it almost seemed fun to watch it struggle to figure out the best course of action when it found there were no cards to be claimed.

"All cards for that room have already been distributed."

Pretentiously offended and outraged, Ro then continued her manipulation, "Listen, it's late and I'm tired, and I'm not in the mood to put up with any crap right now. We had a deal worked out where he'd get to use the room during the day, then I'd get to sleep in it at night while he goes and works a graveyard shift. I'm tired, and I'm ready to go to bed, but he's not answering his phone, so I can't find out what room we have, and if he's not answering his phone, I also can't get the key card from him. So could you please help me out a little, or at least give me the room number so I can pound on the door and wake him up so I can finally get, some rest?"

"I'm sorry, I cannot divulge that information."

"Are you telling me I can't get a card for my own room!"

"You are not on the registered guests," it replied.

"That leech!' Ro cried. "What do you mean I'm not on the list I paid him a hundred creds in advance for the room cost! If I'm paying half of the cost of the room, I should get a card!"

The tension built up between her and the bot until finally a person came from the back room to see what was going on. Because Ro was insisting that Dr. Anderson had cheated her of one hundred creds by buying the room for himself and not including her as a guest, it was now a legal matter, and not just a matter of some stranger trying to get personal information from the hotel.

Things escalated until Ro finally convinced the clerk that if she didn't phone the room, she was going to call the police to come and arrest Dr. Anderson for cheating her of her money. Reluctantly, the clerk picked up the phone and dialed the room number. Ro eagerly watched her dial the numbers…

"9-6-7-4…" He was in room six hundred and seventy four. The nine was just the prefix for dialing and in house number. Ro had gotten what she needed.

After the phone had only rang once, Ro drew the woman's attention away before anyone on the other end could pick up the line. It didn't seem like it would do her well if Dr. Anderson did pick up and explained that he was the only renter for the room. . "Oh never mind! I'll just get another room and deal with him in the morning. He's probably out gambling and left his phone in the room or something,"

The woman quickly hung up the phone, glad not to have to disturb a guest so early in the morning. She pulled up the list of available rooms for the night. The pronounced creased in the woman's forehead and her exasperated sigh told Ro that there were no rooms to be rented.

"Don't tell me," Ro rolled her eyes. "All booked?"

The woman looked at her sympathetically, but Ro knew that it was just an act. She suspected that this woman was glad, if not ecstatic that she was being denied service as from a professional point of view, it wasn't the woman's fault there was no room, so she could so enjoy turning her without any guilt because of her perfect excuse.

"You know what? I'm going to go look around for him in the casino, since this has been delightfully non-helpful," Ro sarcastically excused herself.

She repeated the room number several times to herself. She needed to get up there, fast. But, she wasn't going to make the mistake of just barging in. What if she ended up walking into the very trap she sought to save Zee from?

As she zig-zagged through the slot machines, she was inspired by an abandoned glass of alcohol that someone had left by one of the machines. She picked up the glass, being careful not to touch any part someone's lips might have been on, then carefully carried the glass around with her. When she saw the cleaning bot, she deliberately dropped the glass, with a little over dramatic, "Ooops!"

The bot noticing the mess, immediately proceeded to return to the cleaning closet to retrieve the appropriate cleaning supplies. Ro followed it. Preoccupied with cleaning up the mess, Ro was carefully able to slide her foot in the closet doorway before the door shut and locked again. With the bot speedily hurrying away towards the mess she'd made, Ro slipped into the closet.


	12. Chapter 12

Despite his certain confidence that Zeta was not going anywhere, he still didn't reward his team with even a small smile to show his approval of the accomplishment. Perhaps he was still in shock, that after all this time, it had been so easy. Then again, maybe easy wasn't the right word. If things had been easy they would have caught him with the first ambush at the car they'd staked out in the valet parking garage. Even before that, faking a reservation at the last minute had not been as "easy" as he would have liked. Then again, he hadn't done anything to make the reservation but had assigned one of his agents to do it, who informed him later of the hassle the travel agent gave him about there not being any room available, and wanting some kind of proof faxed over that he was a government agent rather than just hearing him say he was over the phone. Eventually, she upgraded the room of another guests so that they could reserve that one under the doctor's name. He wasn't even sure if he'd deem this mission as uncomplicated as they had nearly gotten them earlier, except that Zeta and Ro had eluded them as they usually did. It was just pure luck that they stuck around. And luck was just something he couldn't deem as professionalism, so it was hard to embrace a success based on something as un-strategic as chance.

"Prepare him up for transport," he ordered his team, getting back to business and away from his amazement. "I'm going to get on the radio with the transportation team and tell them to meet us out front immediately. I want this room cleaned up by the time they get here!"

The energy force field around Zeta was dropped, and the machine fell with a thud to the floor. He looked like Quasimodo with all of the inhibitors all over him, disfiguring the sleek design of his metal body with the bulbous metal lumps. Assured of his immobilization and deactivation because of all of the inhibitors, several of the agents retracted their retaining cords and began helping with the preparation for their departure.

He surveyed his team as they bound the synthoid's ankles together with titanium clamps and steel cable, while having a conversation on his radio. It's the best they had on hand, until they could get him back to the vehicle and restrain him with stronger devices. He was putting his faith in the inhibitors as he knew that if Zeta woke up, the restraints probably wouldn't hold out long. He wondered what the purpose of using a strong metal like titanium was, if you were also going to base his detainment on the strength of with a weak one like steel. While steel wasn't necessarily considered a weak metal, compared to Zeta's strength, while the titanium shackles would hold, the cable would break and he'd be able to run. It was considerable to breaking the chain in a pair of handcuffs, without actually having to remove the handcuffs to have hand movement…completely pointless.

He turned off his radio and turned to his team after speaking with the ground crew, "They're waiting down at the front of the hotel for us now, so let's not keep them waiting much longer."

While already working efficiently, the agents in the room attempted to look even busier as they finished up their assigned tasks. Zeta's arms were securely tied, and his body was now being straightened out in a line on the ground so that it would be easier to fold him in half and then fit him into the oversized duffle bag they planned to carry him down to the lobby in. It seemed like the most easily accomplishable of all the disguises they might have tried.

"Alright, it won't do well to have a dozen people escorting one piece of luggage to the front desk. I want Agent Grays and Agent Woodard to stay with me while the rest of you are to report to the ground team. Try not to all take the same elevator on your way out. We'll finish up here. "

"You sure you can carry the synthoid with just two people?" one of the agents politely questioned Bennet, "He seems quite heavy."

"Agents Rush and West will be joining us here shortly from ground team with a luggage cart from the ground floor."

"Yes sir," the agent responded, feeling uncomfortable for what he now felt had been a stupid question. Of course Bennet wasn't planning on carrying the heavy synthoid around. More than anything, he felt embarrassed for calling attention to himself for his impertinence in questioning Bennet's control over the situation.

With no more questions or suggestions the team members that weren't remaining behind quickly packed up their individual gear. After checking the hallway to see that the coast was clear they began to move out of the hotel room.

"So they really got him this time?" West asked after jumping out of the NSA van in front of hotel.

Rush glared at him irritably. This was at least the fourth time he'd mentioned how unbelievable Zeta's capture seemed. She'd already decided that he didn't deserve to be responded to after the second time he'd stated his skeptical beliefs. However, ignoring him didn't shut him up, and he only continued babbling to himself about the matter. It didn't seem that she could win. Either she'd have to bother to reconfirm his doubt and tell him to keep quiet, or she'd have to listen to him continue on and on.

"Just get the cart." She reaffirmed his question stoutly, while at the same time encouraging him to get on with their business.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it!" West shrugged off her bossy order.

She surveyed the ground floor while waiting for West. She actually had one question about the situation herself. "Where was Ro?" Because they'd seen her herself with Zeta in the arcade earlier she knew that they were here together. But where was she now?

They'd been assigned to check out the airport because of two airline tickets that had been charged to the room Zeta had been previously occupying at the Treasure Island Hotel. They'd searched the entire airport but with no luck. It wasn't surprising as it would be a rare circumstance that they'd ever find them in such a crowded location. Come to think of it, though, it was strange that they were having so much success this time.

Was it possible that they had actually separated for once and that Ro was on the flight, but that Zeta had remained behind? More likely, she imagined the flight had been a hoax to draw them away—and it had. While she had been sure they were still around the arcade area, she'd received orders to go to investigate the airport with West, regardless of whether she believed they would be there that time or not, and had to give up looking.

It wouldn't have been impossible that Ro had been at the airport but that they'd overlooked her while the passengers had been boarding. They'd been mainly using their holoviewers to look for Zeta. Ro by herself, in a disguise, might have easily slipped by if she were unaccompanied. They'd gotten in the rut of just looking for suspicious couples rather than either Ro or Zeta alone. Even so, if she'd gotten on the plane, she would be long gone now. But, if she hadn't, she undoubtedly would be close by. She never strayed too far from Zeta, which meant that she could potentially be in the hotel right now.


	13. Chapter 13

The sounds of coins dropping in the cash out bins was minimal as well as the carefully researched machine sounds that were specifically designed to lull the gamer into a sense of success in order to encourage them to keep playing. Something about the formula worked as people were up this late still playing. Still, while there were people around on the gaming floor it seemed pointless to be looking for Ro on the main casino floor. Security certainly would have noticed a minor suspiciously hanging around and would have asked her to loiter elsewhere.

Among all of the sounds of coins falling and game whistles sounding off, a different sound rose above the echo. Someone had dropped a glass object and announced loudly that they'd done so on accident.

"I got the cart, now lets go get the baggage," West smirked as he pushed the cart a little too far forward into Rush's heels.

"Quit it!" She turned to him, distracted from the occurrence by the slight ebbing pain in her ankles. "Come on, let's get this upstairs," she began pulling the cart toward the service elevator, forgetting about the sound.

The elevator was already on the ground floor when they pushed the call button so the only time they had to wait was for the doors to open. Rush stepped aside as West pushed the cart into the elevator. She then followed him inside, pushing the button for the 6th floor. The doors closed and the elevator began to take them upstairs where Bennet, Grays and Woodard were waiting.

The doors opened again on the 6th floor. Rush stood off to the side again as West pushed the cart out. 'What room?" he asked.

"The one with the door open and Bennet standing in the doorway," Rush sighed, as she looked at their leader waiting for them further down the hall.

"Oh yeah..."

"This is the last of the equipment," Agent Woodard informed Bennet as he set down a large bag on the floor next to the enormous body-sized duffle bag.

"What's in it?" Bennet asked curiously, as he'd thought the other agents had already taken all of their gear with them when they left.

"The restraining guns," he explained," just in case."

"Hopefully it won't come to that."

"We've brought the cart, sir," West chimed in.

"Let's put the synthoid on it, and get going then."

With two people on each side Zeta was easily lifted onto the base of the cart. Agent Grays picked up the bag with the restraining guns in it and piled it on top.

After making a last visual check that the room was empty Bennet led the team toward the service elevator.

Ro pushed the maintenance cart toward the service elevator and pushed the up button. The doors didn't open immediately which meant that the elevator was on another floor and that she'd have to wait for its return. She stole a curious glance over toward the main elevators, debating if pushing her cart over there and calling an elevator would be more time efficient than seeing how long it would take the service elevator to reach ground floor. For all she knew it could be on the top floor and would take forever to reach her. Well, maybe not forever. If no one was pushing buttons all the way down it might get here in a timely manner.

The elevator hadn't been very far up as the doors opened before Ro could get very far in her calculations of the chances of one of the main elevators being on the ground floor and the time it would take for the service elevator to reach her. Disregarding the matter she pushed the button for the 6th floor.

Rush took the initiative to push the button for the elevator. The doors didn't open immediately as she would have thought. As they'd just used the elevator shouldn't it still be waiting for them? She rationalized the occurrence by assuming that the elevator had an auto return to ground floor so that it would be conveniently waiting for the next person needing to bring luggage up.

They could hear the humming of the elevator as it got closer to their floor. The elevator stopped and the doors opened.

Ro felt her heart jump. It was the same frightened feeling and physical shock of suddenly waking up from a dream where she was falling and had almost hit the ground before waking. She recovered quickly, "Ooops, wrong floor!" She jammed her finger as she made a dive to push any button to close the door.

The doors began to close, but the agents were quick to respond. Rush wrapped her arm around the door activating the safety sensor and preventing the doors from closing. "I don't think so," she taunted.

If she wanted in the elevator too, then she guessed that she'd have to make room by getting rid of the cart that was blocking most of the doorway. Ro reached out for Rush's hair and with a powerful tug, pulled her head down and inside the elevator. As Rush was forced to step forward from the leverage Ro had on her head, Ro placed her foot in the doorway, tripping her as she fell in. With Ro's continuing pull, Rush was thrown into the back of the elevator, hitting her head on the back wall when she fell.

Not waiting for her to recuperate, Ro shoved the cart forward with all of her might, ramming it into Agent Grays and West. With the doors cleared, the elevator doors began to shut. Not even taking a moment to massage the bruise on her forehead, Rush turned to throw her arm in the door again, but it had already closed. She was on her way back to the ground floor.

Ro was true to her nickname as she bulldozed through West and Grays, and then on into Agent Woodard and the luggage cart. Stepping back to get out of the way Bennet even found himself trapped up in the tangle of sprawling arms and legs as each agent tried to save himself from being run over completely.

The sound of the luggage cart toppling over with an especially loud cry from Agent Woodard as he was crushed beneath it certainly must have woken every one on the floor. But being scared for their security none of the guests bothered to get out of bed to check out the commotion. More than likely each one of them was dialing the hotel guest service bot to complain about the noise disturbers on their floor.

A little dazed Ro was thankful she was only on the top of the pile and not on the bottom. The contents of the cart were spilled everywhere. The maid cart items thieves on this floor were going to have a hay day when they woke up in the morning. The two bags on the luggage cart had fallen off as well. She didn't have to guess what was in the oversized duffle bag. Its dense metallic weight was doing well as a paperweight on agent Gray's chest. Zee! But what was in the other bag?

It was on the floor as well, almost with in arms reach. She might have ignored it if West didn't seem to be reaching for it from where he was sprawled on the floor. She scrambled over the agents, stepping on whatever body part of whomever she pleased to reach it first. Diving for the bag, and giving her elbows a moderate case of rug burn, Ro had a hold of it!

Almost ripping the teeth out of the zipper, she tore the bag opened and grabbed what was inside. She didn't have time to aim or fire it as West had taken a hold of the restraining gun only a second after she'd pulled it out of the bag, and was in a tug of war with her for it.

Further down in the hallway, in the background, she heard Bennet issue a warning, "Don't move, or I'll shoot."


	14. Chapter 14

If she wasn't so preoccupied with fending off West, and if he currently wasn't serving as a human shield for her, she might have taken a little time to find meaning in the threat. Not even a second after Bennet's last word, Ro found her protection displaced as West had shifted to another angle to try to wrestle the gun away—and a clear shot at Bennet.

Hunt, or be hunted.

Bennet's reaction was impulsive. As he saw the restraining cords flying toward him, his finger slipped on the trigger. The timing had been very close, but as he pulled the trigger, his arms were thrown downwards from the cords wrapping tightly around him, sending his shot into the floor. There was a small burn mark in the floor from the laser.

Not fearing being shot himself now that Ro's gun was discharged West let go of the end of the gun Ro was holding and dove for the bag of restraining guns. She didn't bother to fight him for the rest of the bag. She had to get back to the cart as the agents were up-righting it and attempting to lift Zee back on. Also, the elevator door had chimed, meaning Rush was back from her trip to the ground floor. As she stepped out of the elevator she certainly didn't look happy being back from the one minute vacation Ro had sent her on.

"FREEZE!" Ro heard West shout behind her.

"Not this charade again," she sighed, dropping instantly on the floor. The impatiently discharged cords flew over her head wrapping around the first object in line—Agent Rush.

While it seemed like luck that Rush and Bennet were tied up, she knew it would be too easy for the other agents to distract her while West untied them. Then she'd be severely outnumbered again. If only she wasn't doing this by herself.

She scrambled up to her feet and made a dive for the duffle bag. She was able to pull the zipper down, but then was grabbed by her waist from behind and dragged away by agents Woodard and Grays. Still she had seen what was preventing Zee from breaking away to help her. He was covered by several inhibitors.

Her escape plan was flawed, though she'd realized that when she'd first seen the agents waiting at the elevator with the oversized bag. Zee's eyes were dark and unlit. He was out cold. In her initial plan, she had hoped for something more along the lines of her running the cart into the room thus creating a distraction, then letting Zee take care of the rest of the agents while she backed the cart out of the room and then making a break for it. She hadn't been expecting that he'd be deactivated before she even got there… The only way of getting out of this mess now was to get the inhibitors off.

"Think girl! What would Zee do if he were here!" Well, she could easily answer her own question if she had extendable arms and super strength. He'd probably shove all of the agents off then grab her hand and run for the nearest exit. He'd make use of their unique surrounding to blend in and disappear or come up with a dare devil stunt utilizing the surrounding architecture to escape.

Yeah, she didn't have any of that. There was just the cart, the restraining guns by West, and the cleaning supplies on the floor. While it was not considered good self defense to place herself on the floor in a struggle, Ro did this. Dropping her weight, she pulled down hard and reached for the aerosol spray on the ground. Not nearly as lethal as pepper spray but just as effective. She was free of the agents' grasps for a moment as they began rubbing their burning eyes.

As for Agent West who was foolishly charging toward her rather than listening to Bennet's order to untie him she dispatched a complimentary water bottle grenade. She then grabbed the house keeping broom and made a sharp jab at one of the inhibitors. The broom broke, as it tore off the inhibitor, ripping part of Zee's metal with it. But, for the main part, it was off. As West threw herself at her, she ducked, rolling him over her back. She wasn't surprised that her sub par grenade of wet liquid hadn't deterred him much. She placed the sharp edge of the broken broom under another inhibitor and tried to pry it off. It worked, but then she lost her grasp on the stick as West pulled it away from her. There was still one more inhibitor.

Even though she had her arms and legs bound by the restraining cords Agent Rush was making headway in moving over towards the restraining gun West had dropped. If she reached the gun where the torque for her restraining cords was coming from, she could hit the release and recoil button and would be free again.

Ro felt herself becoming more frustrated as the situation seemed to worsen. It almost seemed tempting to just run and escape herself then come back later when she had a better idea or at least was more equipped to handle the situation. It was a selfish thought. How could she run away and leave Zee like this? The last time the agents had Zee they almost succeeded in erasing his memory. If he hadn't been moving and restoring his memory files during the wipe out, he would be completely gone. He'd have been like a stranger to her, not knowing who she was, what their past was together, and not even knowing what he wanted to do in his future! She couldn't risk them taking him in. If one of them was going to be taken in, both of them would be.

Turning behind her, Ro saw the bag of restraining guns down the corridor. West had left them unguarded. Leaving Zee's side for a moment, she ran back to where they were and picked up the remaining restraining gun. West had ended up accidentally wrapping up one of his teammates; didn't he deserve the same treatment?

The cords flew out and wrapped around West, dropping him to the ground. She would have tried to have nabbed the other agents with him, but they seemed to have run off somewhere to go wash their eyes out.

Feeling a little more confident about the situation Ro ran back over to Zee. She carelessly pulled him out of the duffle bag, throwing the bag off to the side. She didn't have time to gently pull him out or take care in handling him. He wasn't some fragile ER patient, but could be stood to be dropped on his head if that was the fastest way to get him out of the bag.

Being careful so that if the gun accidentally discharged it wouldn't hit her in the face, she began used the gun as a club to knock off another inhibitor. She'd been mistaken in thinking that she just had one more to go. After pulling Zee out of the bag she could see that there were actually two left.

The third inhibitor popped off easily. It didn't have spider legs like the first or second one had. The fourth one did though. She guessed the difference was that the newer models had the spider legs that dug into Zee's metal body while the older ones just held on magnetically. She began to work at ripping off the fourth one when she felt a tingle of pain from the whiplash of having her head jerked back from someone pulling her hair from behind. Agent Rush had managed to free herself. She didn't consider herself tender headed, but then being dragged by her hair was more vigorous than just combing through it. There wasn't much she could do but be dragged backwards if she didn't want to hurt her neck trying to keep her head forward.

She glanced upwards hoping to relieve the pain. She could see straight up Rush's nostrils as well as make out the distasteful scowl on her face. In her upside down gaze, she saw that Rush was wearing a holster on her right side. Ro dropped the restraining gun she was holding and reached behind her and pulled the gun out of Rush's holster.

With all her heart, she hoped that this wouldn't hurt Zee… Painfully ripping a clump of her hair, Ro threw her head forward to make sure that she was making the cleanest shot she could. She aimed for the inhibitor and fired. An enormous explosion followed sending a shockwave in all directions. Ro felt herself thrown backwards along with Rush. The sound was like the grand finale of a Fourth of July fireworks display. The heat was intense, but passed over quickly.

There was no fire to be put out, yet the heat from the explosion had set off the fire sprinklers. The sprinklers were enough to draw the hotel guests out of their room and then send them fleeing like rats from a burning ship to the fire escapes. Contrary to popular belief they weren't actually spraying water, but a liquid chemical formula. The damage done to the guests belongings in their rooms would be more severe than just water damage.

Dazed, and over a dozen feet from where she'd been with Rush, Ro looked to where Zee had been. "ZEE!" Ro cried. He was no where to be seen. She almost began sobbing. She'd missed the inhibitor… It hadn't been the cause of the overly large explosion. She must have hit Zee in a critical spot, and then he must have exploded...


	15. Chapter 15

Ignoring the pains from being thrown several feet by the explosion she ran forward to where Zee had been. "Zee!" she cried. The only response was groaning from the agents behind her. The agents she'd thought had disappeared were with the group still. Initially she'd thought they'd gone to rinse their faces when in actuality, they'd just gone to untie Bennet. She was a sitting duck. She had to get out of here. Zee was gone, her plan had failed. Her only hope was to mix in with the fleeing hotel guests and disappear.

"Oh gosh! What is that smell?" one of the guests asked, pulling his shirt over his face as he exited his room. Ro had been too worried about Zee to notice at first, but within seconds she too noticed the astringent aroma that seemed to burn her nose hairs. "Ammonia?" she coughed, almost gagging on the overpowering scent.

Copying the other guests, she pulled her shirt over her mouth, hoping that breathing through it would make the smell less severe, and also hoping it would help to hide her face. The smell was simply too strong to pass off as a side-effect coming from the sprinkler system. It stunk like someone had set off a bug bomb… The explosion! She immediately recognized the less discernable air freshener smell amongst the lethal chemical smell. She somehow must have hit one of the aerosol cans when she fired at the inhibitor, and that must have been what exploded! But if that was true, where was Zee?

"The service elevator!" she realized, but it was behind her already. She considered running back to it just to check if it was heading toward the ground floor, but as the agents were still there, she didn't dare.

Being one of the few people who was wearing something other than sleep attire it was a little harder to blend in than usual, but she managed to make it down the stairwell to the ground floor with everyone else who was evacuating the floor. Rather than following the throng out of the front of the hotel, she ran back toward the service elevator. He would have gotten off on the ground floor here, she was sure of it!

She pushed the button for the elevator. The doors opened, but he wasn't inside. "Zee?" she asked quietly, peering into the elevator to see if he was hiding around the corner of the doors.

It was empty. "He must already have gotten off," she convinced herself.

She had her doubts though. What if it had been a foolish guest who'd run to the elevator rather than to the stairs after the fire sprinklers had gone off? Or what if someone on the ground floor had called the elevator, but didn't decide to use it when the alarm went off? The idea seemed silly. Who besides herself and the agents would want to use the service elevator this early…. It had to be Zee.—Unless the elevator was just automatically returning to ground floor, and no one was in it…

She wished she could get rid of the logical rationalization. More than anything, she wanted to believe it was Zee. She would have thought that she'd have seen him get into the elevator if it was him, but then she had been knocked back a ways by the blast.

With luck, maybe she'd been knocked out cold for a few seconds which would have explained why she didn't see him get in the elevator. "I'm just fooling myself," she told herself, yet began expanding her search away from the elevator.

"He has to be close by… Forget it and get out of here while you still can!"  
her senses argued.

It seemed hopeless. Security was coming in and was trying to calm down the upset guests. The events on the sixth floor seemed to have woken up other people on the neighboring floors as well.

She didn't want to stop looking just yet, but she needed to make a break for it before she was identified as one of the culprits for the chaos, and while there was still a large amount of confusion.

"Ma'am. I need you to come with me." Too late.

Ro didn't bother to look and see who was addressing her, but turned to take off running. The security guard was quick and grabbed her wrist then pulled her in. The grip was abnormally cold and not very tight.

She struggled for a moment, then stopped. "Zee?" she looked into the guard's eyes. They weren't the familiar blue eyes she was used to looking into. They were dark brown, almost even black. The complexion of the guard holding her was much older, more worn and tired looking. The face held not traces of Zee's appearance in it, but that was the elegance of Zee's hologram disguises, wasn't it?

The returned wink from the left eye was a given, "yes." She wanted more than anything to throw her arms around this stranger in front of her. But as that might blow Zee's cover, she restrained herself.

Almost impatiently she followed Zee as he pretended to escort her through the casino. "Where are we going?" she demanded of the guard, yet her tone didn't sound too unpleasant.

"A safe place," he assured her.

He eventually led her to a windowless, locked door. Careful to make sure no one was watching, he unlocked it then led her down the service hallway. They walked past the security office, and continued down the hallway, making random turns onto other unlabeled hallways. Zee stopped once they came to a hallway with a large door labeled, "Dressing Room."

"Oh no," Ro thought. "Please don't let this be a reenactment of the princess parade."

"The afternoon shift doesn't come in for about another two hours so we have at least have until then."

"You sure no one's going to find us before then?" Ro wasn't so confident that they were in a safe place.

"As this is a changing room there won't be any cameras in here." Demonstrating his comfort with this theory, he took the opportunity to resume his regular appearance without fear of being seen.

"And what an advantage that is," Ro was not so optimistic.

She let out a huge sigh of relief. At least they were together again. She wouldn't be wandering the streets all night, sick with fear that they might not find each other again. "So you going to tell me why we're hanging out in a Showgirl dressing room rather than getting out of here, or better yet, what were you thinking by sneaking off in the middle of the night like that? Even if this wasn't just a big set up, what would Dr. Anderson have thought of you running into his room at 1 am?"

He'd had the whole walk to the Hilton to thing up an excuse, but in the end, he reasoned that nothing he could say would make logical sense of what he did. How could he tell her that compelled by something he couldn't give a name to? "I really don't know," he sorrowfully admitted. "I think something might be wrong with my processor."

"It wouldn't be the first time I wondered about that," she sardonically commented. But he wasn't going to get out of a real answer so easily. She was more than upset with him for what he'd done. A slap on the wrist wasn't going to do. "Honestly, what were you thinking? Even if it all wasn't just a trap, there's no good reason for why you left me like that! Remember what you wanted me to promise you? That we'd leave if things seemed suspicious? You wanted me to promise you that, and here you go breaking the promise yourself! I don't know if I can trust you…" she played the guilt card on him.

"Ro, I'm sorry," he was asking for her forgiveness. "It was wrong of me, I know. I just didn't want to risk putting you in danger too."

"Well you failed there!" she retorted. "You should have known that you couldn't pull something off like this without me finding out eventually. And then you should have figured that I'd be coming after you to save your can!"

"You're right Ro. It was wrong of me to think that you wouldn't have found out… And it's because of you that I haven't been reprogrammed yet."

She'd been intent on staying angry for a little longer, but looking into his penitent eyes, she felt her anger melting away. It was so sneaky of him to play on her human emotions like this! "You have no idea how close you were…They had you all wrapped up in a bag, all ready to go."

"I'm not surprised," Zee said, dropping his hologram appearance, "I'm just glad that you didn't up worse off." Ro shivered when she saw the large hole in his back. The hole she'd put there... Now he was taking her on a guilt trip. Zee pulled out his soldering gun and began to fill in the hole. "They had me surrounded on both sides," he recounted. "At least twelve agents, you're lucky you only ran into the clean up party."

Ro scoffed to herself, "Five agents is a clean up party?" She didn't know what she'd have done if there really had been twelve.

"That's my fault," she admitted, feeling humbled and sick with herself for how she'd risked severely damaging him by her action. "I'd tried to pry it off first, but then Rush grabbed me by my hair, so I pulled her gun out of her holster and tried to shoot it off. I think I hit it because there was a big explosion, or it might have been one of those aerosol cans since the whole floor smelled afterwards. It was the last one in addition to the three others I had to pry off while the agents were coming at me from all sides. They really had you…"

"You hit the inhibitor," Zee confirmed the accuracy of her shot. "The blast from that must have ignited the cleaning supplies nearby.."

"So did the blast permanently damage your common sense, or did you intend to leave me alone with the feds in the hallway when you made your own escape by jumping into the service elevator?" Ro demanded an explanation, or rather an apology.

"When I came to, I saw that you'd been thrown back by the blast. I wanted to take you with me, but I didn't want to risk causing you further pain or injury by moving you if you were hurt. There wasn't enough time for me to assess your condition because the agents behind you were coming round and I knew if I were to escape I'd have to leave before they saw me."

"So you left me not even knowing if I was okay?" Ro took on an accusative tone.

"The agents would have ensured that you were taken to a hospital, if that had been the case."

"And that's it? You'd have left me to their mercy?" Ro knew she was being a little over dramatic, but after what she went through, he deserved to be on the hot spot for a while.

"Ro…" Zee began to protest. How could he tell her that he'd sacrifice every part of himself to the agents in exchange for her release? She'd scold him for wasting her time if all they'd been running for was for nothing if he was just going to give himself in like that for her sake. As upset as she sounded, and even though it was the truth, this wasn't something she wanted to hear from him. "I would have been waiting outside the hospital, waiting for the moment you were stable enough to be released."

"You're on the list, again," Ro eyed him. She'd grilled him enough, and it seemed that he was truly sorry for how he'd poorly handled things in her view. "You can make it up to me by getting us out of here before someone walks in here topless and burns my virgin eyes."

"Actually, I don't think the Hilton hosts any topless performances," Zee began to correct her, but Ro wasn't interested.


	16. Chapter 16

Rather than exiting out the front of the hotel, Zee guided her out the back employee's entrance. Ro felt much better once they had put some distance between themselves and the Hilton, or rather put some distance between themselves and the scene of the crime. Warily, she watched for agents who might be out on the street looking for them. They had both agreed that Bennet wouldn't be fooled into thinking that Zee really had exploded. There hadn't been enough damage done to the hallway to suggest that he had.

Hopefully, though, Bennet would give up rather than continue to send scouts out to look for them. Usually Bennet never lingered in one location for too longer after it seemed that Zee had already left the area. It was surprising that he had stuck around this long even.

"So where to?" Ro asked, yawning a little. She'd hardly gotten any sleep at all in these past few days. On her first day here she'd gotten five hours of sleep at the Paris hotel, and then maybe another hour in the motel.

"I still have the key to our room at the motel. Do you just want to go back there and get some rest?" Zee suggested.

She didn't know if she'd be able to calm down enough to fall asleep, but at least she should try. "Sure." At least she wouldn't have to worry about Zee running off again, as there was nothing left for him to check out anymore.

They changed the direction they were walking, and started heading towards their motel. They made it within a couple hundred feet of their room, but Ro refused to get any closer. For some reason, the NSA van was parked along the curb outside their motel complex, and there was no way Ro was going to risk an encounter again.

Zee magnified his vision, and zoomed in on the third floor where there room was. The door to their room was open, and the light was on. There were agents inside, searching their room.

"How do you think they found out about the motel?" Ro asked.

"I don't know." He pulled the key to their room out of a compartment in his chest. There was no way that they could have known about the room. With the tools they'd had on hand, they wouldn't have been able to open up his chest plate to retrieve the key, in order to trace it back to the motel.

It was simply odd how they had been following them so closely these past few days. They'd been at the Treasure Island arcade, and then they'd been at the Hilton, and now they were at their motel. They seemed to be a step ahead of them, rather than following behind like they usually did.

"You think they planted a bug on you?" Ro asked quietly.

"They why don't they come get us now?" Zee replied.

"Because they're setting up a trap for us in our room! Just like at the Hilton!"

"Maybe," he agreed. "It certainly is a good thing that you left when you did, though.  
"It's not like I knew they were going to be here!" Ro said defensively.

There had to be an explanation for why the agents were at their motel. He wanted to move in closer so he could try to pick up some audio feed for what was going on, but Ro forbid him.

"Guess they're just going to have to charge us for a lost key, because there's no way we're staying here," Ro turned, tugging on Zee's arm for him to follow her.

"Charge…" Something about the word brought up the right memory files, that led Zee to figuring out how the feds had known to be at their motel before them. "I think I know how Bennet is able to follow us so easily."

"Because we keep blowing our cover?" Ro suggested.

"I think he's tracking us by following the purchases on my cred card."

"And how is he doing that?" Ro humored him with a question.

"By monitoring all withdrawal transactions to the IU government spending account in the Las Vegas area. If he knew we were going to be in the area, all he had to do to find us is to look at where we're spending money."

"So why hasn't he done this earlier? Why has it just been this past week that the agents seem to be everywhere we are?"

"Because he knew we were going to fall for the bait. As my card doesn't have an individual identification number I imagine in the past he's had to sort out and narrow down my purchases from of all the other infiltration units' spending. But if he knew that I was the only infiltration unit that was going to be here in Las Vegas, he could easily find our purchases with an exclusive list to look through."

"If he knew we were going to be in Las Vegas, then why not just send a general message out to all hotel security to look for us?"

"There are hundreds of hotels and motels in the Las Vegas area. Do you really think Bennet could have sent out messages to all of them? I doubt it would be profitable to try to coordinate an effort like that in such a big, populated area. But if he could narrow it down to the hotel we would be at, by seeing where we made room reservations, then it would be easy enough to alert a single hotel's security team."

"If that's true then Bennet needs a new strategist. Locking us out of our room at Treasure Island didn't seem to profit them much as I'd made it all the way to the arcade before they showed up. If I were Bennet, I'd have set up a trap in our room like he did at the Hilton."

"How do you know he didn't? We never made it back to the room to find out. Besides, I think you genuinely fried the lock, rather than Bennet locking us out. I think that truly was an accident," Zee replied.

"If anything, I'd have thought he'd be waiting for us at the Paris, where our car is. We know he's tracked our license plate before."

"How can we tell? We haven't been back there either. Maybe there is a team waiting for us at the car?"

"Or at the airport," Ro added. Zee's theory was making more sense, but for now all they had was the motel to confirm that they were following their purchases. "So why didn't they come find us at the motel earlier?" she asked next.

"I imagine they were all at the Hilton. And also, purchases might not be uploaded into the database instantaneously. It might take Bennet an hour or so before he's alerted that I've used my card."

"So from now on we might only have an hour from when we buy something before Bennet knows about it?

"I don't know the exact time. I'm only estimating."

"Well that rules out any long flights. Bennet would be at the airport before we even landed if that's the case!" Ro was beginning to worry.

"If he's in the area we're flying into, perhaps. But if he's not, then he'll have to catch a flight too, so he'll still be behind us."

"Only by an hour," Ro said sourly. "We'll never be able to stop looking behind our backs."

"Not necessarily. Now that we know what he's up to, we can think of ways to deceive him."

"Like how?"

"For instance, I can transfer creds into random accounts which we can use to buy airfare with so that it will be harder to find out where we're flying."

"But then can't he just do the same thing with the other accounts?"

Ro had a good point. He was only hypothesizing right now and hadn't thought through all of his ideas just yet, but he was certain with some more processing he'd work out all of the flaws. "Like, if you just transferred creds to me, then I could buy a car with it, but then Bennet would just know to look for purchases under my account," Ro gave an example. "What we need is income from an account that isn't monitored by the government."

"Then we're certainly in the right place."

Gambling certainly wouldn't be as entertaining if there wasn't a chance of winning money. Against his better judgment, he was going to exploit all of his talents and computer skills to beat the dealers at their own game. He hadn't asked to be put in this position, but he wasn't doing it for himself. He was doing it for Ro, for her future. He didn't feel that he was a desperate criminal, but with their knew discovery that Bennet was following them with his cred card, they needed to come up with a new strategy. They would need to be a little more conservative with their spending on things like airfare and hotels where they'd be staying for more than one night, but they'd still use his card for most of their purchases. Smaller purchases would be harder for Bennet to identify as theirs if they didn't use Zee's card to buy the plane tickets that would let Bennet know what area they had just flown to.

Zee left Ro with a couple of creds to entertain herself in the arcades while he went into the casinos in disguise to win as much as he dared, before moving onto another casino. He didn't want to win all of the money in one hotel, as it might seem suspicious with all of the luck he seemed to have.

While there was some element of luck to the game of poker, no one at any of his tables was able to read his face. He had the handy ability to clean his face from any expression. The other players at his table, as good as they were, always gave away their hands through the rise and falling of their body temperatures, the microscopic amount of sweat that collected on their brow, and the fact that Zee could read their cards in the reflections on their irises.

It seemed like an eternity later that Zee finally returned to the arcade he'd dropped her off at. Ro identified the gangly teen next to her to be Zee in disguise from the clue he was giving her by spelling ZEE in the top scores list right next to her. She'd suspected this teen was Zee in disguise from how he'd managed to live so long on one life, but had had her doubts until now as she'd been in the arcade all afternoon and had seen several other young men with similar gaming skills.

"So we're done here?" she turned to him and asked.

"Yes. I've arranged for us to leave on an outgoing greyhound bus in an hour."

So much for living the good life. They were now stuck following a budget and submitting themselves to third class transportation. Then again, she couldn't really discriminate against riding on a bus with bunch of weirdoes, as their own circumstances made them an odd pair. A robot fugitive and his accomplice certainly weren't considered normal… At least they would be getting out of here—if everything went well. She assumed they were off the hook as she'd been in this arcade for hours and no one had bothered her yet. "Any problems with the feds?" she still inquired.

"No, no problems," he answered simply. "I don't think we're going to have a problem with them. I made sure not to use my card to pay for the tickets."

"You were gone a long time, you had me worried for a sec," she admitted.

"I didn't want to risk playing in the high stakes area, even though the return would be greater, since the card sharks tend to get more scrutinized attention there so I stuck to the regular tables."

"Zee, when you're gambling with your life like we do, you're always in the high stakes area," Ro didn't bother to finish off her life, but simply quit the game she was playing, took Zee by the arm and strolled out of the arcade with him.

This last week had seemed exceptionally strange—Zee running off on his own, being trailed so closely by the feds, and just the stress of not getting much sleep. And while this wasn't the life she imagined or really even asked for, it was the one she chose, so she would make the best of it, no matter what was thrown in their way. The problem with gambling was that there's always the chance of losing—their luck had spared them this time. But how much longer would it hold out?

Author's Notes:

Wow, this took me like 2-3 years to finish just one episode? Holy cow what have I been doing all this time? For crying out loud! I started this thing while I was still in college! I still have intentions to finish this season, but if I do, I'll be certain to finish enough of the story so that everyone isn't waiting for the next part for years and years…

I've had this last chapter almost completed for a long time, but just not the last little concluding bit. It's been so long I don't remember what my original intentions were on how to end it, but guilt has compelled me to just finish it however so at least the episode will be complete.

Thanks so much for your support. I've still got story plans for Ro and Zee, just who knows when I'll get around to it….


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